Roles of Environmental System Knowledge in Promoting University Students’ Environmental Attitudes and Pro-Environmental Behaviors

Piyapong Janmaimool,Samattaphong Khajohnmanee

doi:10.3390/su11164270

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the role of environmental system knowledge in promoting pro-environmental behaviors. Relationships between environmental knowledge and environmental attitudes as well as environmental knowledge and pro-environmental behaviors were analyzed. Environmental system knowledge includes knowledge of political ecology, sustainable development, environment and ecology, and environmental situations. This study included 128 students enrolling in the elective course entitled “Environment and Development” provided by the King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi in Bangkok city of Thailand and 150 students who were not participating in this course. The results revealed that environmental attitudes of students participating in the course was significantly higher than that of students not attending the course. Only knowledge of the environment and ecology highly correlated with environmental attitudes; on the other hand, diverse environmental knowledge significantly correlated with pro-environmental behaviors. The result also demonstrated that indirect impact environmental behaviors reported by both groups were statistically different, but there was no significant difference in direct impact environmental behaviors. This study suggested that environmental knowledge provided through a formal education could promote environmental attitudes, but it may not contribute to students’ engagement in direct impact environmental behaviors.

Highlights

Many higher education institutes have tried to promote students’ pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs)
Levels of engagement in direct and indirect impact Pro-Environmental Behaviors (PEBs) and environmental attitudes were analyzed based on data collected from questionnaire surveys with the measurement based on the scale of 1–5
The results of this investigation clearly revealed that there was significant difference in environmental attitudes and the engagement in indirect impact PEBs between students participating in the environmental course and students not participating in the course

Summary

Introduction

Many higher education institutes have tried to promote students’ pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs). The study of Pizmony–Levy & Michel [4] found that learning about environmentalism and sustainable issues in class and being a member of campus-based environmental groups could promote student’s participation in PEBs. the study of Borchers et al [5] found that environmental education could enhance people’s environmental knowledge and attitudes towards nature. Educating students with environmental knowledge that could promote positive ecological attitudes and students’ engagement in PEBs is an important goal of environmental education [7,8,9], but it remains challenging. Though environmental knowledge is provided, students are still reluctant to engage in PEBs. environmental education research that could support the development of effective environmental education is currently required [10]

Objectives

Results

Conclusion