Abstract
This article brings within two purposes. First it validated the scale of the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) and then analyzed the ecocentrist and anthropocentric attitudes of university students from a Brazilian higher education institution. The original NPE scale of 15 items was used, in the form of a questionnaire and applied in a sample of 241 university students. Before the self-completion of the questionnaires, the university students did not receive the basic concepts of environmental attitudes. Confirmatory factor analysis techniques were used to test the structural model and statistical procedures to describe the sample as to its properties of similarities between the groups of students. The NEP was reduced to 13 items, proving to be reliable and valid to investigate structured and multidimensional environmental attitudes of university students. When analyzing the segmentation of university students, it was identified that women presented a more intense ecocentrist attitude than men. For the other segmentation groups in relation to age range, area of knowledge, semester in progress and course period, they did not present statistically significant differences. However, overall, the scores of university students indicated more ecocentrist than anthropocentrist attitudes. The convenience sample of part of the courses offered by the higher education institution may cause a bias in the research, considering as a limitation of this study. However, with the confirmation of the two-factor model, the results indicate consistency and guide future research to activities related to the environment, such as sustainable tourism, preservation against environmental impacts, among others.
Highlights
The environment is at the heart of contemporary issues
The concept of sustainable development can be considered from the United Nations report in which it states that: "Humanity has the ability to make sustainable development to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." (Brundtland, 1988); and the most recent one, proposed by Holden et al (2017) in which sustainable development is a system of normative values, in perfect harmony and interacted with human rights, democracy and freedom
The research aimed to validate the scale of the New Ecological Paradigm, with the use of structural equation modeling and obtain an empirical description of attitudes towards the environment of university students of a Higher Education Institution (HEI)
Summary
The environment is at the heart of contemporary issues. It is interest goes beyond the limits of Brazil, becoming an international discussion. The NEP scale was used in association with other scales for the determination of pro-environment attitudes: populations (Edorgan, 2009; Guedes et al, 2012; Moyano-Days & Palomo-Vélez, 2014; Hsu & Lin, 2015; Ntanos et al, 2019) , environmental education (Teixeira et al, 2016) , agri-industry actions (Schinaider & Talamini, 2019) , tourism (Kim et al, 2006; Luo & Deng, 2008; Giddy & Webb, 2018), behavior of university students (Sutton & Gyuris, 2015; Utari & Nadiroh, 2016; Speer et al, 2020; Barros et al, 2020), actions for the conservation of species (Hunter & Rinner, 2004), among other academic productions, national and international Supported by these literatures, the research aimed to validate the scale of the New Ecological Paradigm, with the use of structural equation modeling and obtain an empirical description of attitudes towards the environment of university students of a Higher Education Institution (HEI). Its properties of similarities or differences between different groups (gender, age group, area of knowledge, semester in progress, and period of classes) were explored regarding their anthropocentric or ecocentrism attitude
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