| Abstract |
Environmental interpretation can help mitigate the negative impacts of recreation, tourism, and human use of parks and protected areas. Inter-pretation is a mission-based approach to commu-nication aimed at provoking in audiences the discovery of personal meaning and the forging of personal connections with things, places, people, and concepts (Ham, 2016). Personal interpreta-tion enhances enjoyment of visitor experiences (Stern et al., 2011), increase visitors knowledge and understanding of natural and cultural re-sources (Ham, 2016), foster a sense of apprecia-tion toward those resources (Powell et al., 2009), and promotes stewardship behaviors (Ham, 2016). Importantly, interpretation can be an ef-fective management tool for parks to mitigate and influence visitor behaviours (Marion & Reid 2007). This study sought to determine, based on a case study of Albertas Provincial Parks, the out-comes of personal interpretive programs and the factors influencing those outcomes. As a major goal of interpretation is behav-ioural change, this study employed Ajzens (1991; 2011) Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) which suggests that behaviour is best predicted by a persons intention to perform a specific behav-iour, and this in turn is explained by attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control associated with the behaviour in ques-tion. The TPB performs well in predicting a wide range of behaviours and behavioural intentions including environmental behaviours (Vagias et al., 2014). This study not only investigated the effi-cacy of environmental interpretation on influenc-ing pro-environmental behaviour intentions, but also expanded on the theoretical constructs mak-ing up TPB. As such, motivations, satisfaction of visit, knowledge, and environmental worldview were included. The additional psychological con-structs were included in the proposed theoreti-cal model based on previous studies focused on environmental interpretation and pro-environmental behaviours (Moghimehfar & Hal-penny, 2016; Vagias et al., 2014).This study examined the following hy-potheses: (1) Attending in-person environmental interpretation programs increases park visitors intentions to engage in pro-environmental behav-iours; (2) The TPB variables (e.g., perceived be-havioral control, attitudes, and social norms) help predict park visitors pro-environmental behav-ioural intentions; and (3) Motivations, satisfaction of visit, environmental knowledge, and environ-mental worldview improve the prediction of pro-environmental behaviour intentions (proposed theoretical model, figure 1) |
