Developing and validating an instrument of antecedents of solid waste management behaviour using mixed methods procedure

A well-designed strategy for effective solid waste management is a compelling necessity of the modern world. Today, solid waste management is gaining so much of an importance because lack of planning could affect the quality of social, economic and environmental sustainability. Most of the studies have illustrated production of solid waste is due to human needs and desires and the best strategy of solid waste management is to tackle at the point of origin. However, to measure such pro-environmental behaviours among residents, an appropriate and a replicable scale is important. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to explain the processes undertaken to develop a valid instrument to measure the antecedents of solid waste management behaviour. The constructs were assessed using Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour and data was collected from a survey of 233 students belonging to three different colleges of Udupi district, India. The specific validation processes used were: mixed methods approach of content validity, face validity, construct validity, reliability, internal consistency, Cronbach’s alpha correlation coefficient, discriminant validity and convergent validity. Measurement invariance for urban and rural groups was established and the measured model adopted confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling technique for assessing the psychometric properties of constructs. A final and fifth version of questionnaire was designed with 57 items from the initial indicators of 132 items. The findings of this research indicate that psychometrics used in this study are reliable and valid, and can be extended to other research contexts for its higher purpose in environmental protection.