Exploring factors influencing the application accuracy of the theory of planned behavior in explaining recycling behavior

In this paper, meta-analysis was carried out to explore the influence of socio-economics, research design, theoretical construction, and measurement factors on the five paths among the elements of Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The findings suggested that (i) subjective norm shows relatively poor explanatory efficacy due to narrow measurement range; (ii) perceived behavioral control shows the lowest explanatory efficacy because of missing the measurement of perceived control; (iii) there are too few items to measure the recycling intention, making the measurement inaccurate in reflecting participants' psychological performance; (iv) the application accuracy of TPB increases with the sample size, which should be no less than 600; (v) introducing additional variables degrades the application accuracy of TPB in most cases due to their high correlation with standard elements; and (vi) research time, local economic level, participant's characteristics, and waste type also affect the application accuracy. Finally, improvement suggestions were also provided.