| Evaluation of environmental education professional development programs often includes a measure of implementation intention, asking participants how they plan to use the workshop material in the future. Workshop leaders might use the responses as evidence of a successful program. Human behavior is notoriously unpredictable, and various studies show that despite positive intentions, people do not always follow through.; The ActionAssessment study examined the implementation intent and behavior of formal and nonformal educators attending an environmental topic professional development workshop, using an adaptation of an integrative model of behavioral prediction, to determine the merit and worth of the construct of "Implementation" to the overall program evaluation. The purpose of this research was to test whether professional development leaders may accurately predict a participant's future utilization of materials based on a statement of intent at the conclusion of the workshop.; The application of the model allows program developers to understand whether members of a target population are not performing a specific behavior because they have not formed an intention to perform it, or because they are unable to act on their intention. When applying the model, the investigator obtains measures of the populations' beliefs, attitudes, norms, self-efficacy, intention, and subsequent behavior. Through analysis of the variables, the investigator then: (A) Determines whether intention is primarily influenced by attitudes, norms, or self-efficacy in that population under consideration; (B) Identifies the specific beliefs that discriminate between those who do or do not intend to perform the behavior. It is these discriminating beliefs that need to be addressed through an intervention/treatment.; The response rate of the ActionAssessment study was 62.6% (n = 117). Results indicated educators in this study tended to follow-through with what they said they were going to do. When not able to follow-through on a stated intention, the reasons provided were the educators no longer taught a grade or subject appropriate for the material, or could not afford the materials needed to implement the workshop activities. The integrated model of educator behavior prediction moderately predicted educator behavior based on intention (r = .384), though did not explain participant behavior to a satisfactory degree. |
