Effects of environmental illiteracy and environmental awareness among middle school students on environmental behavior

Abstract

This study proposes and employs a structural model to examine the effects of environmental literacy, environmental awareness, environmental attitudes, and environmental behavior among middle school students in Eskisehir on their purchase of environmentally friendly products. In the proposed structural model, environmental illiteracy and environmental awareness were the exogenous latent variables, while pro-environmental attitude, pro-environmental behavior, and the purchase of environmentally friendly products were the endogenous latent variables. The latent variable of environmental illiteracy did not have a statistically significant effect on environmental attitudes and purchase of environmentally friendly products, whereas environmental awareness had a positive effect on pro-environmental attitudes and the purchase of environmentally friendly products. These findings indicate that students with environmental awareness also develop positive attitudes toward the environment, and the presence of a positive attitude toward the environment leads them to display pro-environmental behaviors and adopt a positive attitude toward environmentally friendly products.