Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal

The littering attitude scale (LAS): Development and structural validation using
data from an indigenous (Nigerian) sample
Oluyinka Ojedokun
Article information:
To cite this document:
Oluyinka Ojedokun , (2015),"The littering attitude scale (LAS)", Management of Environmental
Quality: An International Journal, Vol. 26 Iss 4 pp. 552 - 565
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/MEQ-12-2014-0175
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MEQ
26,4
552
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Management of Environmental
Quality: An International Journal
Vol. 26 No. 4, 2015
pp. 552-565
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1477-7835
DOI 10.1108/MEQ-12-2014-0175
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-7835.htm
The littering attitude scale (LAS)
Development and structural validation using
data from an indigenous (Nigerian) sample
Oluyinka Ojedokun
Department of Pure & Applied Psychology, Adekunle Ajasin University,
Akungba-Akoko, Nigeria
Abstract
Purpose Validated and reliable measure of littering attitude is lacking, therefore the purpose of this
paper is to describe the development and psychometric evaluation of the littering attitude scale (LAS)
as a new self-report measure to assess littering attitude.
Design/methodology/approach The internal consistency reliability and validity of LAS were
investigated in a cross-sectional survey of 1,360 urban residents in a South-western State in Nigeria. Data
were analysed using reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling.
Findings Item analysis and exploratory factor analysis suggested a 15-item scale with one general
underlying factor. Reliability analysis score for the 15-item scale revealed a Cronbach coefficient of
0.87. The scores of the LAS items indicated good internal consistency and construct validity consistent
with the principles of scale development. The scale also showed a good fit in confirmatory factor
analysis for the sample.
Research limitations/implications The aims of the study related to determining the validity,
appropriateness, utility and feasibility of LAS were achieved. However, further studies should be done
to validate the scale in other cultural settings.
Practical implications The findings suggested that LAS captures littering attitude and holds
promise as a useful tool to conduct environmental audit by scholars, practitioners, and non-governmental
organisations who are interested in the social and behavioural management of environmental quality.
Originality/value This is the first scale to measure littering attitude. The scale can be used by
practitioners and researchers to conduct benchmarking studies on littering attitude.
Keywords Social, Litter, Littering attitude, Behavioural, Management of environmental quality
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Littering is globally recognised as a societal and environmental problem (Brown et al.,
2010). Litter is any domestic or commercial waste or any refuse, debris, or rubbish that
is disposed of improperly (Ong and Sovacool, 2012). It includes cigarette butts, paper,
plastics, metals, glass, beverage containers, pets, cans, bottle caps, fast food packaging,
drink bottles, sugar cane and maize husks, citrus and yam peels, groundnut shells,
wrappers thrown from car windows, and abandoned furniture and automobiles
(Ojedokun, 2011). Therefore, littering is the dropping of waste on bare ground in public
places as opposed to proper disposal of them. Given that environmental problems
largely stems from human behaviour (Steg and Vlek, 2009), then, littering habit can
compromise the environmental quality of places.
The presence and accumulation of litter in public spaces can have adverse negative
social effects on the environmental quality of settings. Litter reduces the aesthetic
appeal of public places and its tendency to be distributed by wind contributes to
Competing interests: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the
public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
 environmental pollution and declining environmental quality (Arafat et al., 2007). Littering
Additional environmental health risks of litter include the odours arising from the attitude scale
rotting contents of bottles, tin cans, and wrappers and rodents vectors attracted to
the litter (Schultz et al., 2011). All of these components can compromise human health
and environmental quality. Litter also contributes to flooding by blocking drainage
systems (Raffoul et al., 2006) and increases refuse collection costs and associated
economic losses (Kayhanian et al., 2008). The social cost imposed by litter on society is 553
reflected in the loss of amenities that share public spaces with litter (Brisson, 1993).
Therefore, management of environmental quality in public areas is important to protect
public health as it is a distinctive feature of a liveable city (Ong and Sovacool, 2012).
In most urban cities in Nigeria, littering has become a recurrent environmental
pollution issue. It represents a sizeable contribution to environmental management
problem in public spaces at urban high-density areas in Nigeria. Litter is a peculiar
feature of the streets and other public spaces in most urban centres because of the
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concentration of human activities in such areas (Arafat et al., 2007). Like the most
contemporary urban centres in the world, littering is also a pervasive problem among
residents of Ibadan city, the capital of Oyo State in Nigeria. In fact, Ibadan has been
regarded as the dirtiest city in Sub-Saharan Africa (Rahji and Oloruntoba, 2009;
The Nation, 2008). As a result, keeping Ibadan clean has been the priority of
governments in Nigeria (Oyo State Government Edict, 1997). As such, various
environmental management interventions, such as, anti-littering laws and sanctions,
formal governmental structures, and enlightenment campaigns have been deployed as
strategies to address the phenomenon, but few have been successful in alleviating the
problem. The failure of these approaches suggests that littering management may not
be an environmental law problem, but an attitudinal, behavioural, or social problem
that requires a psychological solution.
In the light of the repeated failures of previous anti-littering laws, there is a need to
look for another effective strategy. Some scholars (Ojedokun, 2009; Schmuck and Vlek,
2003) have suggested a focus on the individual attitudes, if negative towards littering in
aggregate across a community, can have an effect on attitudinal problems like littering.
This is because people have attitudes towards a variety of objects and rely on these
attitudes, in deciding how to behave towards their attitude objects (Crawley and
Koballa, 1994).
The construct of attitude is difficult to define, but there is a consensus in scholarly
literature that attitude is an evaluative judgment summary of attribute dimensions
(e.g. good-bad, likeable-dislikeable) of a psychological object (Albarracn et al., 2005).
Following this approach, Eagly and Chaiken (2005) define attitude as a psychological
tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or
disfavour. The evaluative quality is central to the definition of attitude, and it distinguishes
the concept from beliefs or opinions. Walmsley and Lewis (1984) posit that the
construction of attitude involves cognitive, affective, and conative elements. The cognitive
facet reflects ones beliefs and thoughts about an attitude object, the affective component
reflects a persons assessment and feelings expressed verbally or through reactions
towards the object for which attitude has been formed, and the conative facet reflects ones
behavioural intentions/overt observable acts (Ajzen and Fishbein, 2005). According to this
point of view, the concept of littering attitude is a psychological tendency to evaluate or
react with a certain degree of positive or negative disposition towards dropping of all
sorts of waste on bare ground in public places. Thus, individual attitudes may determine
their responses to public policy and littering prevention regulations.
 MEQ The underlying assumption of the theories of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein,
26,4 1980) and planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) is the consistency between behaviour and
attitude. This assumption suggests that behaviour follows attitude, and by influencing
attitude with the right message delivered through the right medium, peoples behaviour
can be influenced. As such, attempting to prevent littering by changing individual
attitude towards littering is a potentially effective environmental quality management
554 issue, and an important goal of different stakeholders both within and outside the
universities. Schmuck and Vlek (2003) have acknowledged that peoples attitude is a sine
qua non for the building of an environmentally responsible society and for intelligent
policy making to reduce environmental problems. Without people, litter would not
exist (Campbell, 2007); this assertion implies that certain human activities affect the
environmental quality. Therefore, without an understanding of what individuals think,
feel, or believe about littering, the most rigorously designed environmental management
interventions will have little effect on the acceptance of littering prevention approaches.
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Tracking attitudes towards littering will provide a platform to incorporate public

perceptions in developing strategies to prevent littering, and this has implication for
the management of environmental quality. If researchers and policy makers are to
take attitudes into consideration in designing educative littering prevention strategies
targeted at individuals and group, there must be psychometrically sound ways to
measure those attitudes. This suggests that the utility of a scale is dependent on its
validity and reliability.
So far, researchers (e.g. Weigel and Weigel, 1978; Dunlap and Van Liere, 1978; Seiler,
1994; Thompson and Barton, 1994; Fuhrer et al., 1995; Ellis and Thompson, 1997;
Dunlap et al., 2000; Arafat et al., 2007) have attempted to assess general environmental
attitudes through self-report measures which evaluate the natural environment with
some degrees of favour or disfavour. These measures include the Environmental
Concern Scale, New Environmental Paradigm Scale, Environmental Knowledge,
Ecocentric and Anthropocentric Environmental Attitude Scales, Environmental Value,
Ecological Consciousness, the revised NEP scale, and Litter Generation Scale. Although
these measures are highly valuable, they do not capture littering attitude. This
represents a gap in literature in this area.
In summary, the foregoing suggests that littering is an attitudinal problem, but to
date it appears that no published standard measure of littering attitude is available.
What is missing, and which is offered here, is a measure of littering attitude relying on
data from an indigenous Nigerian sample. The littering attitude scale (LAS) is intended
to be an index of a persons attitudes towards littering. The LAS differs from previous
scales in that it is directed towards the constructs of litter and littering with which
littering prevention actions seem to be closely linked. For a scale to be considered
appropriate to assess littering attitude, the scale must, contain several items that
address peoples thinking, feelings, and actions towards litter and littering, exclude all
items that might crossover into related constructs (e.g. marine litter), and if it contains
items indirectly related to litter (e.g. litterers and littered places), the items should be
related to littering. Therefore, this paper fills a gap in knowledge by describing the
process used in developing and establishing the psychometric properties of LAS.
The objective of this study was to develop a valid and reliable self-report LAS that
would be useful among an indigenous Nigerian sample. To this end, the present study
reports the multistage development of the LAS. Phase I focused on the development
and validation of LAS. Phase II focused on using structural equation modelling (SEM)
to establish the structural validity of LAS. The use of SEM is predicated on the
 shortcomings inherent in the classical methods of judging reliability and validity of a Littering
measuring instrument in the fact that none of them take the latent variables into attitude scale
account as part of the measurement model (Blunch, 2013). Thus, the theoretical definitions
of reliability and validity as coefficients of determination when the measurement was
regressed on the theoretical constructs cannot be used as a basis of calculations (Blunch,
2013). However, using SEM opens up such possibility (Blunch, 2013).
555
2. Research methods phase I: development and validation of LAS
2.1 Participants
An initial interview to inform the item-writing process was conducted among a sample
of 25 (12 male and 13 female) residents of Ibadan. The age ranged from 19-62 years
old and the mean age was 23.9 (SD 4.3). A structured survey interview-based
questionnaire, asking them to list at least ten things they thought or considered as litter
and littering was administered. Subsequently, for pilot test, 200 (100 male and 100
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female) residents with a mean age of 26.7 (SD 4.3) were used to determine if the 24-
item LAS are yielding the kind of information that is needed to measure littering
attitude. They were recruited from five communities in Ibadan which were not included
in the phase II of the study. Tabachnick and Fidell (1989) suggested that a minimum of
five respondents per questionnaire item is a reasonable number to consider for a pilot
study, thus pilot-testing the 24-item LAS required a minimum of 120 participants. The
socioeconomic composition of the participants was largely lower class (84, 42 per cent),
middle class (49, 24.5 per cent), upper middle class (39, 19.5 per cent), and working class
(28, 14 per cent). The majority of the respondents reported being married (101, 50.5 per cent),
cohabitating but not being married (20, 10 per cent), divorced (10, 5.0 per cent), single or
never been married (60, 30 per cent), and widowed 9 (4.5 per cent). Of the respondents who
completed the survey, 18 (9 per cent) had primary school education, 54 (27 per cent) had
secondary school education or equivalent, 88 (44 per cent) had university degree or
equivalent, 40 (20 per cent) had masters degree or professional master degree. The majority
were Christian (129, 64.5 per cent), Moslem (56, 28 per cent), other religions (10, 5 per cent),
and no religious affiliation (5, 2.5 per cent).

2.2 Measures
Demographic form. A demographic form was administered to gather descriptive
information on age, gender, marital status, educational background, religion affiliation,
occupation, and household income.
Social desirability bias. The Marlowe-Crowne 2(10) (MCSD, Strahan and Gerbasi,
1972) is a shortened form of the MCSD designed to measure socially desirable
responding. This scale consists of ten true or false items that describe culturally
approved behaviours with a low probability of occurrence (Crowne and Marlowe, 1960).
Participants are asked to respond to True or False to five items keyed in the true
direction and five items in the false direction. Higher scores representing higher
tendency to answer questions that makes the participant appear in a favourable light.
The objective of this scale was to collect evidence for response bias. Strahan and
Gerbasi reported that the scale have moderate internal consistency with coefficients
ranging from 0.57-0.70.
LAS (initial version.). The LAS consists of 24 items on littering attitude. The items
were developed based on the cognition, affection, and behavioural components of
attitude. Respondents described their attitude on a five-point Likert format (strongly
 MEQ agree 5; strongly disagree 1), with higher scores indicating negative attitudes
26,4 towards littering.

2.3 Scale development procedures

In developing the LAS, guidelines in scale development from literature were followed
(DeVellis, 2011; Gerbing and Anderson, 1988). As a first step in developing the scale,
556 literature on litter, littering, and existing environmental attitude scales were reviewed.
This revealed that existing measures lack conceptual relevance to littering attitude.
Because little information was available in the literature to guide item compilation, new
items were generated for LAS.
Step 1: item generation. To ensure that the LAS contains items representative of the
areas of interest, and therefore has content validity, the pool of items included in scale
was constructed based on interviews. The aim of the interview was to determine what
targeted population thought is litter and littering, and to indicate how they think, feel,
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or act towards litter, littering, littered places, and litterers. Several statements were
generated directly from the statements participants used to describe their thought
about litter and littering.
Step 2: item selection. The statements generated in step one were subjected to content
analysis to identify the principal categories by using frequency count and percentage.
The suitability of each item selected was established based on its frequency in the pool of
items. The minimum frequency recorded for the selected items was two, while the
maximum frequency was 25. The frequency was embarked on to establish agreement
among respondents on what they considered as litter and littering, thereby establishing
the validity of such item. A set of 28 items were selected from the statements.
Step 3: content validity through member checking. The items selected were reviewed
by six interviewees to assess for item relevance and wording ambiguities of the
statements generated. This involves designing a questionnaire with items selected on a
yes or no format, and taken it back to the interviewees. On the basis of the feedback
from the interviewees; a first revision of the items was compiled by reformatting
phrases and separating ambivalent items.
Step 4: review of item pool by experts. Five subject-matter experts, three in social
psychology, and two specialising in testing and test construction reviewed the draft
items by assessing relevance, language, and measurement scales adopted. The revised
items with the definitions of litter and littering were given to the experts to suggest
content areas that have been omitted, but should be included. At this stage, some items
were deleted because the experts did not judge them to be measuring construct under
consideration. This exercise reduced the items to 24. All items were rated on a five-
point Likert scale (strongly agree 5; strongly disagree 1). Nine items were reverse-
scored to reduce response sets.
Step 5: pilot testing. The retained items were then pilot tested to examine their
suitability, with a view to investigating the following aspects of the scale: language,
relevance of the items, clarity, and feasibility of the items. To control for the tendency to
respond in a socially desirable manner, the short form Marlowe-Crowne 2 (10) social
desirability scale was added to the questionnaire. The items on the questionnaire were
translated into Yoruba Language and back translated into English language using
two experts in Linguistics. A cross-sectional survey design was used to administer the
questionnaires to 200 individuals at three communities in Ibadan. The researcher and
a research assistant visited the communities to provide a brief description of the
 study and requested for the permission of the respondents. The participants were Littering
informed that the survey was interested in obtaining their opinions regarding some attitude scale
environmental related issues. After the permission was granted, individuals who
wished to participate in the survey were given questionnaires to complete. The participants
were also asked through an open-ended question at the end of the questionnaire, to give
feedback about the clarity of the items and state any problems in completing the
questionnaire. After data collection, the data were analysed to establish convergent validity 557
of the two versions and other necessary psychometric properties. There was a positive
relationship between the scores from the two versions of the questionnaire. The survey
took 15 minutes to complete. No incentive was provided.

2.4 Data analysis

SPSS (version 22) was used for data analysis to calculate both the factor and
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reliability analyses.

3. Results and discussion

Bohrnstedt (1983) described the importance of establishing the reliability and validity
of a scale. He emphasised the importance of validity and reliability in establishing the
utility of a scale. Scale reliability can be assessed with several methods, e.g. temporal
stability, split-half reliability, and internal consistency. But the most widely used
method for item selection in scale development is the internal consistency method
(Clark and Watson, 2003). This can be estimated by means of a reliability coefficient,
such as Cronbachs (Cronbach, 1951). Thus, a scale is reliable if items are highly
intercorrelated, suggesting that items are measuring the same construct (DeVellis,
2011). Different suggestions have been proposed for the acceptable level of coefficient
, but an above 0.80 constitutes a reliable measure (Clark and Watson, 2003). Besides
this, DeVellis (2011), Hair et al. (2010) suggest that a Cronbachs of 0.70 is adequate for
internal consistency reliability.
Moreover, internal consistency can be evaluated also with item-total correlations
and inter-item correlations. The item-total correlation is the correlation of the item to
the summated scale score and items with correlations below 0.50 with the scale score
should be eliminated (Hair et al., 2010). The inter-item correlation refers to correlations
between among items, and items with correlations below 0.30 with other items should
be excluded (Hair et al., 2010).
Construct validity is a scales ability to measure what it is supposed to measure
(Hinkin, 1998). Face and content validity was built into the test development process,
following methods set in DeVellis (2011) scale development guidelines. The validity of
LAS items were examined using the item-total analysis procedure outlined by Edwards
(1957) to determine validity of each item and reliability of the whole scale; Lawshe
(1975) minimum content validity ratio (CVR) of 0.40 at p o 0.05 significance level was
the norm for retaining any item. All the 15 items were retained.
The reliability of LAS was assessed through Cronbachs . The 15 items showed
good internal consistency ( 0.87). The correlation of LAS items with items on the
MCSD ranged from 0.04 to 0.13 and were not significant; thus giving evidence for lack
of a bias towards socially desirable responses.
To explore the scales dimension, the 24 items from the LAS were analysed using
principal components extraction (allowing extractions of factors with Eigenvalue
greater than 1) with an orthogonal rotation using SPSS version 22.0. The principal
 MEQ components extraction was used to create eigenvalues that maximise the amount of
26,4 shared variability among the variables (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007). There were three
factors extracted accounting for 52.34 per cent of the variance. However, extracting
three factors is unnecessary because the scale failed to rotate based on more than 25
iterations (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007). Based on the results of the scree plot and factor
loadings, the analysis was rerun specifying one and two factors, all yielding the same
558 result that factor loadings were strongest on a single factor. Using the unrotated solution,
all items loaded strongly on one factor, suggesting that the items measure the same
underlying concept. According to Tabachnick and Fidell (2007) a factor loading of 0.60 is
an acceptable criterion for retaining items. Using Factor 1, items were retained if they had
a factor loading of 0.512 or above. This criterion resulted in 15 items remaining in the
final LAS, accounting for 50.59 per cent of the explained variance. Analyses revealed that
the items had moderate communalities ranging from 0.257-0.740. The mean item score
was 3.48 with higher scores representing negative attitude towards littering. A listing of
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factor loadings when forcing two factors is found in Table I.

4. Conclusion of phase I
The objective of the phase I was to develop a measure of littering attitude and to
establish the validity and reliability of the scale through a pilot study. The initial

Factor Factor
Item 1 2

1. I believe littering is a negative habit 0.016 0.655

2. I think one should not bother about litter once it is not affecting ones life 0.727 0.127
3. Even though my surrounding is littered, I dont worry much about it 0.781 0.005
4. When a bin is full, I will carry my litter to the nearest empty litter bin 0.842 0.146
5. I believe litter does not hurt anyone 0.641 0.364
6. Litter is unsightly 0.729 0.063
7. Seeing litter in drainages upsets me personally 0.785 0.003
8. Seeing someone littering upsets me 0.461 0.315
9. I am not comfortable in a littered surrounding 0.676 0.011
10. I can participate in removing litter in my community 0.819 0.074
11. In the absence of an empty litter bin nearby, it is ok to throw litter
beside a full litter bin 0.849 0.065
12. I feel uncomfortable whenever I am in a littered environment 0.774 0.150
13. When I see people littering, I feel angry about it 0.281 0.515
14. Litter is only considered a problem when it hurts ones personal well-being 0.765 0.084
15. Any members of the public caught in the act of littering must be punished 0.660 0.037
16. I think time spent in removing litter from public places is wasted 0.646 0.063
17. Litter ruins the environment 0.066 0.547
18. Litter is only considered a problem when it hurts the well-being of others 0.512 0.165
19. Throwing small items on the ground is not littering 0.731 0.147
20. If I have enough time or money, I would certainly devote some of it to the
removal of litter in my community 0.817 0.088
21. It is my responsibility to report to the appropriate government agency
any person seen littering 0.239 0.352
22. When I see people littering the public places, I will tell them that public
places are extension of personal homes that should not be littered 0.020 0.231
Table I. 23. When a litter bin is full, it is ok to throw waste on the ground near the litter bin 0.602 0.389
Factor loadings 24. If anything, I must admit to a slight dislike of litterers 0.677 0.035
 24-item scale was carefully constructed following the scale development guidelines in Littering
literature (DeVellis, 2011; Gerbing and Anderson, 1988). The scale was proven to be attitude scale
valid, reliable, simple to administer, and intelligible to the respondents. The scale met
the criterion of content/face validity. For construct validity, the factor analysis did
not reveal a strong a multidimensional structure, suggesting that the scale is a
unidimensional construct by the sum of all items. Also, the percentage of explained
variance and Cronbachs were satisfactory. The findings indicated that the scale 559
behaves as expected, and suggest that LAS measures the construct it was intended to
capture. The final version of the scale contains 15 items with a five point Likert scale.
The newly developed scale fills a gap in the literature in measuring littering attitude.
If future validation studies confirm these findings; then the LAS will be a valuable tool
for both researchers and practitioners to assess littering attitude. Therefore, additional
research, both scholarly as well as applied, is needed to further explore the validity and
the utility of the scale.
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5. Phase II: evaluation of the structural validity of the scale

With the psychometric properties established, the second phase involved exploring the
structural validity of the LAS. To ensure that LAS works in an indigenous population,
the purpose of phase II was to use the 15-item scale developed in phase I with an
indigenous (Nigerian) sample and evaluate its structural validity by demonstrating
that littering attitude, as measured by LAS, captures how people think, feel, and acts
towards litter and littering.

6. Method
6.1 Setting of the study
The study area is Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State in Nigeria. It is the largest city in
West Africa. Historically, Ibadan is an indigenous town located in the humid Southwest
of Nigeria. It covers a land area of about 7.5 miles (12 km) radius at an altitude ranging
from approximately 500 to 700 ft. (about 150 to 210 m) with isolated ridges and peaks
rising to about 900 ft. (about 270 m). Ibadan is a city typical of many African cities
known for having the old town area (inner core), the transitional area, and peripheral
areas. Administratively, Ibadan metropolis used to be under one local government;
the Ibadan Municipal Government, before it was split into five distinct local
government areas (LGA) in 1991. The five LGAs are North-East, North-Central,
North-West, South-East, and South-West. The population of Ibadan is estimated at
about 2.55 million according to the 2006 census (National Population Commission,
2009). The population was projected to increase at 3.2 per cent annually (Oyo State
Government, 2011). Most of the residents engage in petty trading, small-scale
business, and few works for government and private organisations. Ibadan has
several public, private, and social amenities, and about 300 public and private
nursery, primary, and secondary schools.

6.2 Participants
Data for this validation study were obtained as part of a larger study. Participants in the
study (n 1,360) comprised males (770, 56.6 per cent) and females (590, 43.4 per cent).
The age ranged from 18 to 65 years (mean 32.36, SD 10.98). The information
about the characteristics of the participants has been published elsewhere
(see Ojedokun, 2011).
 MEQ 6.3 Measure
26,4 Littering attitude. The 15-item LAS developed in phase 1 was used in phase 2. The
respondents indicate their answers on a five-point Likert scale (5 strongly agree;
strongly disagree 1), with higher scores indicating negative attitude towards littering.

6.4 Procedure
560 The researcher adopted a multistage sampling technique for data collection in the
study. First, two LGAs were purposely selected for data collection. Secondly, core and
transitory areas were identified, and using the Nigeria National Population
Commissions list of communities in the two LGAs were identified. After the
identification of these communities, odd numbers simple random technique
(communities that fall on the odd numbers) was used to select, at least, 50 per cent
of the communities from each LGA. A proportional technique was used to allot
questionnaires to the selected communities. Lastly, a total of 2,000 questionnaires
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were randomly administered to consented participants by the researcher and

research assistants who were purposely trained for data collection. The purpose of the
study was equally explained to each participant before administration of the
instrument, and only those who consented to participate in the study were
given questionnaires to complete. The respondents did not need assistance in
completing the questionnaire because the information on the cover letter and the
instructions on how to fill the questionnaire were explicit (see Ojedokun, 2011 for more
information on sampling procedure). Some questionnaires were filled and returned
immediately while others were retrieved after repeated visits. Data collection lasted for
four months after which 1,520 questionnaires were retrieved. The collected
questionnaires were screened for adequacy and missing data, after which 1,360
questionnaires were selected for data analysis. The rest was rejected due to missing
information. No incentive was given.

6.5 Data analysis

A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed using the structural equation
modelling (SEM) in Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS, version 22), using
Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation to evaluate the structural validity of LAS.

7. Results and discussion

The CFA tested a one-factor model after confirming the assumptions of multivariate
normality and linearity through SPSS. Results revealed no indication that the
data departed from multivariate normality and linearity. Model fit was assessed
following Hair et al. (2010), Mak and Sockel (2001) suggestion that at least one absolute
fit index and one incremental fit index be used in addition to the 2 statistic
and the associated degree of freedom. When model fit is adequate, the ( 2) is
non-significant. However, because the ( 2) is oversensitive to sample size, alternative
fit indexes, such as the GFI, AGFI, CFI, TLI, and PCFI, are generally assessed.
The possible values for these indexes range between 0 and 1. The GFI, AGFI, CFI,
and TLI values are considered satisfactory when they are above 0.90, while the
PCFI above 0.80 is acceptable. Following this guideline, the CMIN/DF, CFI, RMSEA,
LO 90, HI 90, and PCLOSE were adopted in estimating the model fit in addition
to the 2 statistic and the associated degree of freedom. The one factor model is
consistent with the conceptualisation of littering attitude as unidimensional construct
 ranging from negative to positive littering attitude. In the model, all the 15 items Littering
loaded on a single factor. The model shows a good fit (Df 90; 2 546.920; p o 0.001; attitude scale
CMIN/DF 6.077; CFI 0.963, RMSEA 0.061, LO 90 0.056, HI 90 0.066,
PCLOSE 0.000). The standardised factor weights and the standardised coefficients
are presented in Figure 1.

8. General conclusion 561

One of the primary aims of CFA is its ability to assess the construct validity of a
proposed measurement model. CFA is a stringent test of the factorial structure of

0.58
LAS1

0.72
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LAS2
e1
0.44

LAS3
e2
0.51

0.76
LAS4 e3
0.60
0.85
LAS5 e4
0.66
0.41
0.72
e5
LAS6
0.77
0.66
0.64
e6
LAS7
0.81
0.72
e7
0.85 LAS8
0.62
Littering_Attitude e8
0.79 LAS9

0.76 0.57
e9
LAS10
0.62
0.38
0.45 e10

0.81 LAS11
0.20
0.62 e11

0.65 LAS12
0.65
e12
LAS13
0.38
e13
LAS14
0.43 Figure 1.
e14
LAS15
CFA with
standardize
e15 coefficients
 MEQ a measurement instrument. The fact that the LAS withstood this test successfully
26,4 offers support for its construct validity. In summary, the results support the structural
validity of the LAS among an indigenous Nigerian sample.
Together, the findings of the phase I and II of the study showed that the LAS have
very acceptable levels of reliability and validity. In terms of reliability, findings showed
that LAS had high levels of internal consistency and reliability. In terms of structural
562 validity, findings of the CFA supported a one-factor structure of the scale. Overall, the
LAS is a Likert scale developed to measure positive and negative attitudes towards
littering. Additional validity studies comparing the LAS with real littering behaviours
are needed to support the validity claims. Further studies are also needed based on
samples from other cultural settings.
Some limitations are acknowledged. First, the current measurement relies on
self-reports. Although findings indicated that social desirability did not significantly
contaminate the responses, future studies might check whether dispositional issues
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may influence responses to the LAS. Also, the scale appears unidimensional, but
when the factor loadings were examined, items 1, 13, and 17 loaded significantly on
factor 2 but were not included in SEM analysis. Therefore, the findings might
have been different if all items were included SEM analysis. Hence the scale may be
interpreted with the sum of all items and not as isolated items or cluster of questions.
Further, no predictive validity was established in this study. To establish
predictive validity in the development process of the LAS with the participants is
practically difficult because it is not known when the participants would
engage in littering behaviour. Also, LAS was not translated into all languages in
Nigeria, this could have been done, but such a translation might not be suitable
for all populations. It is hoped these findings may encourage the future research to
validate the scale in other languages. The current measure allows for testing
this assumption.
In conclusion, the findings indicated that LAS is a reliable instrument and provides
a reasonable measure of littering attitude. This scale passed through the validation
process and structural validation using SEM among an indigenous Nigerian sample.
Hence the scale could aid researchers and stakeholders who have management of
environmental quality as their priority in conducting environmental audit related to
littering attitudes, and through this audit designing both social and behavioural change
campaigns to reduce littering in public areas, thus improving both personal and
community health. The scale is promising and could find utility beyond Ibadan city
and the Nigerian sample.

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About the author

Dr Oluyinka Ojedokun is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Pure and Applied Psychology
of the Faculty of Social and Management Sciences, Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria.
He is a Fellow of North-West University, South Africa and an author and co-author of several
articles published in national and international scientific and accredited journals. His interests are
social, personality, environmental psychology, wellbeing and psychological health related issues.
He holds a PhD in Social and Personality Psychology. Dr Oluyinka Ojedokun can be contacted at:
yinkaoje2004@yahoo.com

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