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Archives of Business Research – Vol. 10, No. 2
Publication Date: February 25, 2022
DOI:10.14738/abr.102.11713. Chu, L., & Wu, L. (2022). The Investigation to the Learning Behaviour of Body Painting. Archives of Business Research, 10(02). 165-
185.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
The Investigation to the Learning Behaviour of Body Painting
Li-Chuan Chu
Department of Business Administration
Nanhua University, Chiayi, Taiwan, R.O.C
Li-An Wu
Department of Business Administration
Nanhua University, Chiayi, Taiwan, R.O.C
ABSTRACT
Amid the emergence of body painting as a new art form in the modern fashion
industry, a growing number of vocational-technical schools in Taiwan have
included this form of art into their programs. This study aims to use the Theory of
Planned Behavior (TPB) in order to explore the learning behavior of body painting
respondents in terms of their subjective norm, descriptive norm, attitude, personal
norm, perceived behavioral control and intention. In the research process, a
questionnaire survey was conducted among body painting respondents in an
independent sampling approach with the collection of 260 valid samples. The data
are analyzed by using the statistical software package SPSS. The results indicate
that all variables of the subjects-subjective norm, descriptive norm, attitude,
personal norm, and perceived behavioral control, have a significant positive
influence on their intention. Meanwhile, attitude has a partial mediation effect on
the relationship between subjective norm and descriptive norm to intention.
Personal norm has a partial mediation effect on the relationship between subjective
norm and descriptive norm to intention. Perceived behavioral control has a
complete mediation effect on the relationship between subjective norm and
descriptive norm to intention.
Keywords: Body Painting, Descriptive Norm, Personal Norm, Theory of Planned
Behavioral
INTRODUCTION
The Motivation and Background
Since the very beginning of the education of the cosmetics and hairstyling, the related
vocational education system has developed for over forty years, ranging from the training of
the professional skills in high schools, the very departments of beauty industry including the
management and application of cosmetics, the fashion styling, to the graduate schools of the
technology of the cosmetics. Nowadays, as a growing number of the courses of beauty
profession and industry are taught, the system of the education for the beauty industry are
completing day by day in Taiwan.
To be notable, year by year did the growing number of the relating departments of cosmetic
profession appear, which was quite a difference to the rest of departments of the vocational
education in Taiwan. On the basis of quantitative data, out of the 2282 high school students of
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Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 10, Issue 2, February-2022
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
the work study programme in the home economics group, occupying 12.9% of the high school
students in Taiwan, the cosmetic major accounts for 73.9 % (Department of Statics, Ministry of
Education, 2017)
So far, the leading orientation of the vocational education had been designed on the condition
that the students would immediately devote themselves to the workforce right after their
graduation. In this sense, the very goal of the vocational education was to help students to take
an occupation as smooth as possible (Chen & Liu, 2019). The courses of the vocational
education were to help the students just to apply what they have learnt in practice with the
techniques of their profession in the workplace ( Donkor, Nsoh & Mitchual, 2009).
Provided by the Statics Department, the Ministry of Education, the quantitative data of the
employment rate of the students graduating from the vocational high school in 2017, the
students of the home economics department accounted for 23%, which took the third large
group, of which the students majoring in cosmetics department was 63%, while the fashion
styling 18%. However, as the trend of society constantly changed, the structure and the market
of beauty industry was also under its reformation: the growing number of students who used
to major in the department cosmetics transferred to study at the fashion styling as their
profession. At the present, the department of fashion styling is getting more and more popular
with those students interested in the professional skills of wedding secretary, painting artist
and stylist. As a growing industry, the body painting is widely applied, such as the party make- ups, the bride make-ups, the stage make-ups, and the like. In order to catch up with the need of
the professional artist in the beauty industry, more and more body painting courses are given
in the vocational schools. This research is to start with the concern of body painting learners,
investigating into the scenes of body painting education, which is also the very motivation of
this research.
Objectives of the Research
On the basis of the background and motivation, this study aim at exploring whether the
personal background variants, (i.e. the gender, age, education level, the family status, the
occupation, working year, average monthly income) place the significant influences on the
intention of the survey respondent to learn body painting. It is via the survey that this research
aims at figuring out the key elements of learning body painting, as well as the interrelationships
between subjective norm. descriptive norm, attitude, personal norm, perceived behavioral
control, and intention. In all. The following listed specific objectives of this research, which is
served as the reference information for the schools and the relative education organisations, as
well as the body painting learners:
1. To explore how subjective norm the respondent learning body painting influences
attitude, personal norm, and perceived behavioral control respectively.
2. To explore how descriptive norm the respondent learning body painting influences
attitude, personal norm, and perceived behavioral control respectively.
3. To explore how attitude affects intention of the respondent learning body painting.
4. To explore how personal norm affects intention of the respondent learning body
painting.
5. To explore how perceived behavioral control place influence on intention the
respondent learning body painting.
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Chu, L., & Wu, L. (2022). The Investigation to the Learning Behaviour of Body Painting. Archives of Business Research, 10(02). 165-185.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.102.11713
6. To explore the mediation effect of attitude, of personal norm, and of subjective norm
between the descriptive norm and intention respectively.
7. To explore the mediation effect of attitude, of personal norm, and of perceived
behavioral control between the descriptive norm and intention respectively.
8. To analyze whether there is significant difference between the respondent and each
different variant, (i.e. subjective norm, descriptive norm, attitude, personal norm,
perceived behavioral control, and intention).
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Fishbein and Ajzen (1977) probed the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), which was mainly
served as to predict and to realise individual behaviours. This theory assumed the intention of
the individual to take a certain action is under the influence of both attitude and subjective
norm, which was synonymous with whether the action of the individual was supported by
his/her significant other, or the reference group; furthermore, intention would directly
influence the certain action whether the individual took. In short, TRA assumed that the active
willing of the individual controlled the certain action whether an individual took.
In fact, the behaviour of an individual was not always out of one’s will but the external and non- rational elements, which was less concerned in TRA theory. Therefore, in 1991, Ajzen adapted
the theoretical framework of TRA and probed the Theory of Planned Behavior, (TPB) by adding
perceived behavioral control. Each variant of TPB is listed below:
1. Subjective Norm, (SN) : This variant consisted of the formula that normative Belief (nj)
multiplied by Motivation to comply (mj). Normative Belief implied the pressure which
an individual feel about whether he/she performed a certain behaviour, while the
Motivation to comply meant the attitude of the reference group toward the specific
behaviour that an individual took. To exemplify, the colleague of an individual had
agreed with his/her habit to exercise regularly, while he/she was willing to comply with
the opinion with the colleague (the reference group), which meant he/she was
significantly effected by subjective norm.
2. Attitude, (AT): Attitude was an individual’s valuation of a specific behaviour. The better
the attitude toward the certain behaviour was, the higher the Intention was; vice versa,
the worse, the lower. 3. Perceived Behavioral Control, (PBC): Perceived behavioral
control is the belief that an individual felt how hard it could be as performing a certain
behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). Perceived behavioral control included both the inner and the
external perspective, referring to the former personal perception of the self-efficiency,
the ability and the practice of oneself while the later the restriction of time, money, and
all the other relating sources. As an individual felt the more sources and opportunities
were available, the less the frustrations would be expected; meanwhile, the PBC would
grow stronger. 4.Intention : Intention implied the tendency as a person took a certain
behaviour; in other words, it was during the decision process that the psychological
intensity implied the consideration whether to take an action or not. In this sense, BI
was the inevitable process of all kinds of expression as well as the decision to make
before the practice. (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1980).
Nevertheless, some researchers were aware of the possible shortcomings of TPB, adding the
new variants to develop the model of TPB to explore the intentions. For instance, many
researches suggested to take personal norm and descriptive norm into concern. (Harland et al.,