Awareness and Attitude of College Students Majoring in Landscape Architecture towards the Sustainable Development

Soyoung Han,Yoonku Kwon

doi:10.3390/su11195464

Abstract

Reflecting the interest in sustainable development (SD), researches on the attitude toward SD have been steadily conducted for various groups. To explore the characteristics of awareness and attitude of college students majoring in landscape architecture towards the concept of SD, this study has two research questions; to analysis latent classes according to the learning participation pattern (research question 1), and to explore student characteristics that influence the classification of each classes (research question 2). The latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify the combination of relationships found in the classes based on similar patterns among the characteristics of people rather than the relationship between observed variables. A total of 495 students majoring in landscape architecture, 222 males and 275 females, are participated in this study. The results of this study are as follows. First, six latent classes were extracted in relation to attitudes toward SD. Second, college students majoring in landscape architecture tend to view the concept of SD from an ‘environmental’ and ‘environmental and economic harmony’ point of view rather than from an ‘environmental, social, and economic’ point of view. Third, grades and educational experiences were found to have a significant effect on the probability of belonging to a specific latent class for SD. Finally, based on these results, we suggest a method for organizing interdisciplinary courses to comprehensively access the ‘environmental, social and economic’ areas of the curriculum.

Highlights

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) urges humankind to participate in the effort to accomplish the goals described in the SDGs
How do college students who major in landscape architecture understand the concept of Sustainable Development (SD), and do they differ in attitudes toward sustainable development (SD) depending on their grade level or education experience for SD? These questions are of great social significance in that it can serve as a basis for predicting the direction of decision-making and policy-making in relation to the environmental industry, as well as demands to address academic curiosity
Our results show that college students majoring in landscape architecture tend to view the concept of SD from an ‘environmental’ and ‘environmental and economic harmony’ point of view rather than from a ‘environmental, social, and economic’ point of view, in aspects of the two SD models discussed above, our results imply students majoring in landscape are inclined to the concentric circle model

Summary

Introduction

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) urges humankind to participate in the effort to accomplish the goals described in the SDGs. It is important to identify the awareness and attitudes of members of society on SD Reflecting this situation, recognition of the concept of SD [2,3], attitudes to the relationship between the environment and the economy [3,4,5], and research on the awareness of SD [6], are continuously being conducted. Choi et al [3] included the question, ‘if the economy develops, environmental problems can be solved with science and technology.’. This question is included in the survey to examine the relationship between economic growth and environmental preservation. The fact that two views coexist suggests that in order to shed light on the attitudes of SD, it is necessary to examine the perception of the relationship between science and technology and environmental issues

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion