Development and Validation of the Environmental Communication Scale

Abstract

Although environmental communication has grown considerably over the past several decades, no assessment tool exists to measure the degree to which people actually engage in environmental communication. To redress this matter, we developed the Environmental Communication Scale (ECS). The ECS is a 20-item measure that assesses environmental communication along three dimensions: practicing, dismissing, and confirming. Practicing and dismissing environmental communication dimensions assess the degree to which people engage in or avoid conversations and media reports about environmental issues. The confirming dimension taps people's attitudes regarding the importance and necessity of engaging in environmental communication. The ECS appears to have construct validity, relating as expected to people's self-reports about attitudes regarding the environment, motives for acting favorably toward the environment, concerns about environmental issues, and pro-environmental behaviors. In addition, the measure appears to perform reliably and consistently across time.