Volunteering intention among Malaysian undergraduates: investigating the influence of attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavior control and religiosity

Abstract

Youth represent important target of the population with great potential and a valuable resource to work as volunteers. The primary focus on describing the characteristics of youth who choose to volunteer, however, has resulted in limited understanding of the psychosocial factors impacting on youth intention to volunteer. To bridge this gap, we used an extension of a well-known theoretical framework, the theory of planned behavior (TPB), and added a new variable that is religiosity to predict youth’ intentions to volunteer for community service. The age of respondents was between 18 and 26 that currently pursuing their studies in University Malaysia Perlis. Using content and thematic analysis, data for all the study variables were collected through self-administered survey questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS version 18.0. A total of 500 sets of questionnaires have been distributed and 432 questionnaires were returned and used for coding, analyzing and testing the hypothesis. The findings analyses showed that attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and religiosity positively influenced volunteering intention. The results also demonstrated that the hypothesized model was fit and all hypotheses were supported. Sample from old people and other variables that related to volunteering behavior were suggested to be included in future research