Understanding the Walk Intention of Older Adults in China with the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Prototype Willingness Model

Walking prevents disease and keeps older adults healthy. Studying the walking decision factors of ageing people is an imperative step in understanding and promoting their behaviour. The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and the prototype willingness model (PWM) are two well-known frameworks that deal with reasoned and social reaction processes in decision-making. This paper used these frameworks to examine the motivational mechanisms of walking among older Chinese adults living in small towns and used the structural equation model (SEM) for regression analysis. The analysis was based on 407 questionnaires and compared two models. Model 1 is TPB and model 2 combines TPB with PWM. The results show that behaviour willingness (BW) is significantly correlated with behaviour intention (BI), and model 2 explains a higher proportion of intention variance than model 1. Perceived behavioural control (PBC) is the most significant predictor in the two models, which implies that walking usefulness and walking feasibility are critical to older adults’ willingness to walk and walking program development. Finally, the utility of the integrative model is discussed, in terms of the theoretical contribution to walking among older adults and the applied implications for the promotion of walking.