Environmental Awareness and Its Impact on University Social Responsibility of Students at A Private University in Chimbote, Perú

Abstract

Purpose: To analyze the influence of environmental awareness on university social responsibility among students of a private university in Chimbote, Peru. Theoretical framework: Theories associated with environmental awareness, university social responsibility and other factors were addressed. Method: A mixed Dexplis-type approach was applied, with a non-experimental and cross-sectional design, where the total population was 1180 university students and the probability sample for the survey was 290 students and the non-probability sample for the interview was 30 students that served to collect quantitative and qualitative data respectively. Quantitative data were obtained through the ECA-FMEP instrument of environmental awareness (Laso et al., 2019), whose reliability was assessed by Cronbach's Alpha coefficient α = 0.905 and the RSU was evaluated through the RSU scale instrument of university social responsibility (Serrano et al., 2022), whose reliability was assessed by Cronbach's Alpha coefficient α = 0.868 which was obtained by being applied to a pilot test of 30 learners, where the quantitative data obtained were then processed in SPSS, and the qualitative data were obtained from the answers to the questionnaire of open questions that were evaluated with Atlas.ti software considering 20 codes, 12 sub categories and 8 categories, also taking into account other factors that influence the USR. Results and conclusions: The results support a very high degree of positive correlation between environmental awareness and university social responsibility with an rs = 0.967 and a significance level of p = 0.000, where the coefficient of determination shows that environmental awareness influences 94.7% of university social responsibility, while the remaining 5.3% is affected by other factors. It is concluded that there is a very high positive correlation and there is a 94.7% influence of environmental awareness on university social responsibility, where the remaining 5.3% is due to other factors such as socioeconomic level, previous education, personal experiences, influences and the legal framework in force. Originality/value: To provide insight into students' perceptions on the management of environmental awareness and its influence on university social responsibility.