Promoting Youths’ Pro-environmental agency: a Pilot intervention program for a sample of Italian University students

According to the PYD (Positive Youth Development) perspective, which emphasizes the importance of youths’ resources and the plasticity of their developmental pathways (Lerner et al., 2015), during the last decade attention has been drawn to the need to equip younger generations with adequate skills to address climate change-related challenges (Bandura & Cherry, 2020), namely to be positive change agents in their communities (Ardoin et al., 2023). In accordance with EE (Environmental Education), in order to promote youths’ learning and participation, it is crucial to involve them in activities that engage them in dealing with real-world environmental issues within their local community and recur to their own resources such as critical thinking, creative problem-solving, self-regulation, and collaboration with others (Garcia et al., 2017). Our research wants to contribute to the integration of the two different traditions of PYD and EE (Ardoin et al., 2022) to promote effective practices to develop youths’ skills to address climate change-related problems. In particular, it aims to examine the preliminary results of the evaluation of Proviamo!, a pilot intervention designed to promote pro-environmental behaviors (i.e., recycling and engaging others to recycle) and the underlying skills among university students. Building upon Bandura’s Social-cognitive theory (1997; 2001), the intervention aimed at enhancing students’ agentic capacities, such as self-efficacy beliefs crucial for enacting pro-environmental behaviors (Cuadrado et al., 2021). The pilot phase of the intervention involved a group of 35 students from different Psychology courses and years (bachelor’s, master’s degrees and doctoral course; Mean age = 23.7; SD = 3.65) who participated in group activities aimed at planning and implementing a targeted goal-setting plan to raise awareness among fellow students about recycling behavior at university. The goal of this contribution is to evaluate changes in participants’ regulatory pro-environmental self-efficacy, problem-solving self-efficacy, and interpersonal self-efficacy. Furthermore, it aims to examine participants’ perceived acquisition of competencies and their level of engagement in the program. A repeated measures Analysis of Variance over two time points (pre-post-intervention) revealed an increase in regulatory pro-environmental self-efficacy (F = 22.269; df = 1; p < .001; Partial Eta Squared = .40), problem-solving self-efficacy (F = 8.396; df = 1; p = .007; Partial Eta Squared = .20) and interpersonal self-efficacy (F = 7.698; df = 1; p = .009; Partial Eta Squared = .19) measured respectively using scales adapted from Cuadrado et al. (2021) and Pastorelli et al. (2001). Finally, descriptive analyses of participants’ assessment of the program’s implementation, obtained through ad-hoc measures, showed a positive evaluation of their perceived acquired competencies and engagement in the program. These preliminary results are encouraging both in terms of the implementation of the intervention and its effects. In particular, promoting active students’ participation in specific activities aimed at addressing contextual environmental challenges through collaboration with others has shown positive results both regarding students’ engagement and the promotion of personal agency. Future studies should consider the involvement of a bigger sample as well as a control group to extend the analysis of the efficacy of the intervention.