An extended TPB approach to examining Chinese university students’ public and private campus pro-environmental behavior

Extensions of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) commonly incorporate environmental knowledge, connectedness to nature, personal norms, and efficacy beliefs, yet their theoretical ordering and relevance to different forms of environmental action remain less clear. This study examined an explicitly ordered extended TPB framework for Chinese university students’ routine personal and socially participatory campus pro-environmental behavior. Survey data from 806 Chinese university students were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. A pooled exploratory factor analysis of the private- and public-sphere behavior items was also conducted to assess whether the two behavioral domains could be empirically distinguished. Environmental knowledge was most closely associated with perceived behavioral control, whereas connectedness to nature was strongly associated with attitudinal, social, and moral orientations. Attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and personal norms were positively associated with behavioral intention. Intention was central to both behavioral domains, while collective efficacy provided an additional pathway for public-sphere participation. The pooled factor analysis supported two strongly related but empirically recoverable behavioral subdomains. The findings support an integrated account in which distal cognitive and affective orientations relate to more proximal individual mechanisms, while collective agency becomes particularly important for socially participatory environmental action. Universities may therefore need to combine sustainability education with practical opportunities for individual action and credible structures for collective participation.