Environmental Volunteering Values among University Students: Comparison between Gender and Study Stream

Abstract

Environmental education has been embedded across the curriculum in the primary and secondary school curriculum to foster the value of volunteerism in environmental conservation. In this regard, students’involvement in environmental volunteerism requires support from different parties, especially educational institutions. In this light, students often face constraints that damper their intention to continue their involvement as environmental volunteers. The values of environmental volunteerism, specifically religion, biospheric, egoistic, and altruistic, are predictive factors in sustaining students’ involvement in environmental volunteerism. Thus, this study aims to examine the values of environmental volunteerism among university students and compare these values based on respondents’ gender and study streams. This quantitative study employed the survey research method where sets of the questionnaire were distributed to 357 respondents chosen from environmental volunteers across Klang Valley, Malaysia. The data was analysed using descriptive, t-test and ANOVA. The results showed that students demonstrate high environmental volunteerism values, specifically religious, biospheric, egoistic, and altruistic values. There are significant differences in the egoistic and religious values among female and male respondents. The male respondents showed a higher egoistic value, while female respondents demonstrated a higher religious value. Furthermore, respondents from different study streams demonstrateddifferent environmental volunteerism values. This study’s findings emphasize that different approaches based on gender and study streams should be taken to foster environmental volunteerism values among university students. This could also help sustain university students’ involvement in environmental volunteering activities.