Influencing Factors Of College Students’ Walking Behavior And Physical And Mental State During COVID-19

To protect the life safety and health of college students during COVID-19,strict access control was implemented on university campuses.College students’ daily life was isolated on campus,resulting in several physical and mental health issues.Under this background,this study aims to investigate the influencing factors of college students’ walking behavior and physical and mental state during COVID-19,that is,to investigate the relationships among perceived built environment,walking attitudes,walking behavior and physical and mental state,and the impact of the pandemic on college students.The study provides suggestions for universities to improve the built environment and optimize the management measures to meet students’ travel demands on campus,promote students’ physical and mental state,and reduce the negative impact of the pandemic.A questionnaire survey was conducted among undergraduate students at Dalian University of Technology on two consecutive days from September 20(Sunday)to 21(Monday),2020.The survey questionnaire included questions related to personal attributes,perceived built environment(convenience,road condition and safety,and aesthetics),walking attitudes,walking behavior(number of walking trips),physical and mental state,and the impact of the pandemic.After passing the reliability and validity test,the descriptive analysis,independent samples t-test,one-way ANOVA,and correlation analysis were performed,and four structural equation models(SEMs)were developed based on the proposed hypotheses and conceptual frameworks to explore the associations among the variables on weekends and weekdays.The empirical results indicated that the four SEMs all fit the data well,thereby validating both of the conceptual frameworks.Perceived built environment(especially convenience)and attitudes significantly influenced walking behavior and physical and mental state of college students.Walking behavior had a significant positive effect on physical and mental state.The effect of attitudes on perceived built environment through perception and the effect of perceived built environment on attitudes based on cognitive dissonance theory were both significant,but the former effect was much stronger than the latter in terms of effect significance and magnitude of coefficients.Walking attitudes served as a mediating variable,confounding the impact of perceived built environment on walking behavior and physical and mental state;perceived built environment also served as a mediating variable,confounding the impact of walking attitudes on walking behavior and physical and mental state.The COVID-19 pandemic had significant negative impacts on walking attitudes and the physical and mental state of college students.In contrast,it had a relatively weak impact on their walking behavior.The associations among these variables were different on weekends and weekdays.Walking attitudes had a significant impact on walking behavior on weekends;however,no direct or indirect relationships were found between walking attitudes and walking behavior on weekdays.The effect of the perceived convenience on walking behavior and that of walking behavior on the physical and mental state were stronger on weekends,whereas the effects of the perceived convenience,walking attitudes and the pandemic on the physical and mental states of the students were stronger on weekdays.The models’ comparison results indicated that the models hypothesizing attitudes affect perceived built environment were better.The findings of the study can provide a scientific basis for formulating campus management measures during the pandemic.For example,universities should implement appropriate strategies to improve the objective and subjective built environment,especially convenience,optimize management measures to meet students’ daily study,life,and travel demands,and cultivate positive attitudes among students to promote the physical and mental health of college students during COVID-19.