The Effect of Educational Intervention Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior on the Promotion of Waste Separation at Source Behavior in Primary School Students in Khorramabad, Iran

Waste separation education is very important for students because of the important role of this group in attracting parental involvement. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the effect of educational intervention based on the theory of planned behavior on the promotion of waste separation at source behavior among the primary school students in Khorramabad City, Iran.

This randomized controlled interventional study was conducted during the academic year of 2020-2021 among the primary school students in the city of Khorramabad. Eight schools were selected in a multi-stage method and the sample size was estimated at a total of 200 people, taking into account at least 100 samples in each group (test and control). Then, the educational intervention was performed based on the results of needs assessment for the experimental group during one month and in the form of three sessions of 60-minute training. The data were collected 2 months after the intervention and were analyzed using SPSS software by using independent t-test, paired t-test, and chi-square test.

Before the educational intervention, except for the score of awareness variable, all variables were not significantly different between the two groups; however, after the intervention, the two groups had significant differences regarding all of the studies variables (P < 0.050). The performance of the intervention group before training was 2.34 ± 0.73, which increased significantly to 3.11 ± 0.45 after training (P < 0.001).

Educational intervention based on the theory of planned behavior by promoting attitudes and evaluating the behavioral consequences of students in the field of waste separation behavior at source eventually improved the behavior of students; it is suggested that this educational method be implemented in other schools as well.