Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of posted feedback on recycling behavior and the relative effectiveness of two different types of feedback. An A-B-BC-A within subject design was employed. Subjects in this study were college students, professors, and employees at a university. After a baseline phase, written feedback was delivered and both written feedback and graphic feedback were delivered in the next phase. Then, all the treatments were withdrawn in the final phase. The dependent variables in this study were the rate of correct separation and the weight of recycling paper. Four separation containers were used for four different materials; paper cups, aluminum cans, recycling paper, and miscellaneousness. The rates of correct separation were obtained by calculating the percentage of the number of correct items in each container. The results indicated that posted written feedback was effective in increasing both the rate of correct separation and the weight of recycling paper. When the graphic feedback was added to the written feedback, however, the incremental effect of the graphic feedback on the rate of correct separation was not clear. On the other hand, the weight of the recycling paper was increased when the graphic feedback was added. The implications and limitations of these findings were discussed and the direction of future studies was also proposed.