Littering Attitude among University Students in Cameroon

The objective of this study is to explore the relationship between sociodemographic determinants and littering attitude among the students of the University of Yaounde 1 (UY1). For this purpose, we administered the Littering Attitude Scale (LAS) of Ojedokun (2015), built in Nigeria. The last is a 5 points-Likert Scale comprising 24 items, with a good reliability (α of Cronbach = .87). The pilot-test with 20 respondents showed a less strong, but still good reliability in Cameroon context (α of Cronbach = .747). Participants were 493 students (males and females aging 15 to 46) from the internal structure of the UY1. Results indicated a high negative attitude toward littering by comparing respondents’ scores to the hypothetical mean of 2.5 (Mean = 3.826; SD =.453; p < .001), which means that our participants have a negative emotion toward littering. Only age appears to have a significant positive relationship, though weak, with the littering attitude among the UY1 students (r = .122; p = .042). All the other sociodemographic variables like sex, education level, faculty, education background, type of residence, place of residence, region of origin, financial situation, marital status, employment status, and religious affiliation, came out to be unrelated to the littering attitude. Since the campus is always littered, it will be pertinent to measure, in further studies, the littering behavior rather than only attitude towards littering.