Introduction : Climate change mitigation requires reducing transport-related emissions, especially in daily student commuting. Understanding dispositional factors that drive ecological mobility is essential to design effective interventions.
Purpose. This study examined how motivational and moral determinants predict students' intentions and behaviors regarding sustainable mobility, by comparing two major theoretical frameworks: Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory.
Method : A survey was conducted among 643 engineering students in France. Participants completed validated scales assessing psychological needs satisfaction and frustration, autonomous motivation, personal and social norms, value orientations, ecological beliefs, awareness of consequences, and future orientation. Intention to adopt ecological transport and actual use of polluting transport were measured. Path analyses were used to test and adjust the SDT and VBN models.
Results: Both models showed comparable predictive performance, explaining about 25% of the variance in ecological mobility intention and 11% in polluting transport use. In the SDT model, intention was positively predicted by autonomous motivation and by the satisfaction of competence, autonomy, and relatedness, while competence frustration hindered intention. In the VBN model, intention was positively predicted by biospheric values, awareness of consequences, future orientation, personal norms, and social norms, and negatively by egoistic values. Altruistic values, hedonic values, and ecological worldview showed no significant effect. Both frameworks converged on the finding that higher ecological intention was associated with lower reliance on polluting modes.
Conclusions: Dispositional determinants of ecological mobility can be explained both through motivational processes (SDT) and moral-normative mechanisms (VBN). Their complementary nature suggests that interventions should target both psychological need support and normative influences to foster sustainable transport choices among young adults. Future research should integrate situational factors to better capture the gap between intention and behavior.
Acknowledgments: Part of Mon Trajet Vert (MTV), supported by ADEME, this project fosters sustainable student mobility and engages higher education institutions.