Under Construction @ Keele 2016 Volume 2 Issue 2 | Page 22

13 Brief Outline of Methodology One hundred and ninety-one participants (55.5% females) were recruited for a questionnaire based study. The mean age of those taking part was 19.72 years, reflecting the fact that participants were all undergraduate students attending a UK based university. Participants were recruited through classes and through a course credit scheme. Standard ethical procedures were followed. The study investigated participant’s willingness to buy recycled products and whether they viewed recycling as ‘morally correct’. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire which contained three sections: Section one asked about their values, section two asked about their moral norms towards recycling, and section three asked about their willingness to buy recycled products. Section 1: Values Sixteen items14 measured the extent to which participants regarded STV and SEV as important. For STV, four items measured altruistic concerns: equality, a world at peace, social justice and helpfulness; and four items measured biospheric concerns: respecting the earth, unity with nature, protecting the environment and preventing pollution. For SEV, three items measured hedonic concerns: pleasure, enjoying life and gratification for oneself; and five items measured egoistic concerns: social power, authority, wealth, ambition and being influential. This section required participants to rate the importance of each item as a ‘guiding principle in their life’ on a 9-point scale ranging from -1 (opposed to my values) to 7 (extremely important). Section 2: Moral Norm to Recycle Participants’ moral norms were measured using a published scale that consisted of four items.15 The four items were ‘I feel I should not waste anything if it could be used again’, ‘I would feel guilty if I did not recycle’, ‘it would be wrong of me not to recycle’, and ‘not recycling goes against my principles’. Participants rated how much they agreed with the items on a 7-point Likert scale, running from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Higher scores indicated a stronger moral norm towards recycling. 14 Linda Steg et al. "The significance of hedonic values for environmentally relevant attitudes, preferences, and actions," Environment and Behaviour 46 (2012). 15 Michele Tonglet, Paul S. Phillips, and Adam D. Read. "Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour to investigate the determinants of recycling behaviour: a case study from Brixworth, UK," 214.