Factors Affecting the Students' Environmental Awareness, Attitudes and Behaviors in Ondokuz Mayis University, Turkey

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the students' environmental awareness, attitude and behavior levels and factors influencing their environmental awareness, attitude and behavior. A face-to-face survey with 621 candidate graduate students in the Ondokuz Mayis University was used to collect the data. The environmental awareness, attitude and behavior were determined by the students' assessments based on a five-point Likert scale. The ordered probit procedure was used to determine factors affecting the students' environmental awareness, attitudes and behaviors. The study reveals that the candidate graduate students' environmental awareness, attitude and behavior are found to be high. The probit models showed that both environmental attitude and behavior were influenced by the environmental education and information factors, while the socio-demographic factors generally have important impacts on the students' environmental awareness as expected. While the variables of gender had the highest impacts on the students' environmental awareness, both awareness and curiosity levels towards environmental news had the highest influences on the students' environmental attitude and behavior, respectively. To increase the students' environmental literacy levels, the departments should put sufficient compulsory environment courses on their programs, and they should focus on providing their graduates with environmental attitudes and behaviors.