The moderating effects of gender and education level on safe food handling intention among consumers in Sibu, Malaysia: based on the Theory of Planned Behavior

Abstract

The consumers who did not comply with safe food-handling practices also contributed to the occurrence of food contamination. This study adapted the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to examine the moderating effect of gender and level of education differences that influence the intention of safe food handling at home. A total of 623 consumers based in Sibu, Malaysia completed a questionnaire that measured attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavior control (PBC), and intention. Based on PLS-SEM multi-group analysis (PLS-MGA) by permutation approach, gender demonstrated no moderating effect on the TPB relationships in each state. Meanwhile, the level of education was a significant moderator between PBC and intention. In this relationship, it was indicated that PBC for consumers from lower education group was stronger than their counterparts. These results offered useful information for local authorities or educational institutions to gain a better understanding of consumer behavior towards safe food handling, allowing the authorities to develop intervention accordingly.

The impact of perceived risk of online takeout packaging and the moderating role of educational level

“…Similarly, for the lower education group vs. medium one, the influences of PPRP on attitude (H11d) ( β = −0.420 vs. β = −0.398), subjective norms (H11e) ( β = −0.460 vs. β = −0.407), and PBC (H11f) ( β = −0.487 vs. β = −432) are reinforced. The results confirmed again that lower-educated people are more prone to being influenced by outer circumstances (Ruby et al, 2019 ). Meanwhile, the results are in line with the prior research (e.g., Li et al, 2022 ) which highlighted consumers with higher education are more likely to motivate online food buying behavior when confronting inconvenient conditions against going outside to dine.…”

“…That is, people with higher education groups are more inclined to hold their own opinion towards their perceived behavioral control and are more objective to analyze outer conditions than the lower one. The result is in tandem with the previous studies (e.g., Ruby et al, 2019 ), while contradicting the result of Hwang and Choi ( 2019 ), showing the importance of contexts for the conditional effect of education level. Similarly, for the lower education group vs. medium one, the influences of PPRP on attitude (H11d) ( β = −0.420 vs. β = −0.398), subjective norms (H11e) ( β = −0.460 vs. β = −0.407), and PBC (H11f) ( β = −0.487 vs. β = −432) are reinforced.…”

“…To this end, the significance of education level as a mediator in TPB was highlighted in prior studies. For instance, in the scenario of safe food handling, consumers with higher education levels are less affected by PBC than their counterparts (Ruby et al, 2019 ). Meanwhile, in terms of electric vehicles, the impact of PBC on purchase intention towards electric vehicles is stronger for the higher educated consumers than the less ones (Huang et al, 2022 ).…”