Determinants of Undergraduates’ Environmental Behavioural Intentions and Their Links to Socioscientific Issues Education

Abstract

Socioscientific issues (SSI) education provides a framework for students to learn about controversial scientific topics such as climate change, vaccines, and genetic engineering, but rarely measures specific personal factors in student decision-making. SSI educators might benefit from building on behavior theories such as the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Value-Belief-Norm Theory of Environmentalism (VBN) in examining how students make decisions about different types of environmental issues. Undergraduate students (n=132) were surveyed to investigate for which types of behavior TPB, VBN, or both theories are most effective, and to explore whether climate change knowledge was a significant predictor of behavior. Behaviors were divided into indirect behaviors with recycling as a direct behavior comparison. The combined theories of behavior best predicted behavioral intentions in regression models over either theory individually. Recycling, a direct environmental behavior, was predicted by different determinants than three indirect environmental behaviors. Climate change knowledge was not a significant predictor in any of the models. These results support the use of different behavior models for different behaviors and exploration of subjective and personal norms around environmental behavior in the SSI classroom.

Students' Environmentally-Friendly Behavior: The Mediating Effect Investigation

“…This shows that high schoolers' scientific reasoning can increase their environmental behavior intentions. This aligns with the findings of Kirby (2021) and Wu et al (2021) that scientific reasoning is an indicator of environmental behavior intentions.…”

Speaking Their Language: Does Environmental Signage Align to Personal Dimensions of Environmentally Responsible Behavior in Undergraduate Residence Halls?

“…Males consistently report lower ERBs than females, and these differences are significant across Energy, Water, and Materials behavior. Evidence of gender differences with respect to ERBs is consistent with findings reported in other empirical studies [67][68][69][70][71]. However, the reason for gender differences underlying divergent environmental behaviors is unclear.…”

Promoting Environmental Citizenship Through Local Socio-Cultural Traditions in Science Education

“…We argued that science education has the potential to locally develop more sensitive environmental citizens through the SSI approach (cf. Kirby, 2021;Chowdhury et al, 2020;Levinson et al, 2017). The review of the case studies from this viewpoint shows that the shift from a general environmental understanding to a place-specific understanding keeps both teachers and students interested in the topic and reinforces the emotional sense of place as an important transmitter of sustainability thinking.…”

“…These issues are challenging in public and policy debates causing controversies and requiring citizens to be able to incorporate both scientific understanding and broader cultural, political, and social factors. Citizens need scientific literacy in deciding behaviours around these environmental issues that allows them to investigate scientific understanding with these extraneous factors (Kirby, 2021;Zeidler et al, 2005). Good practices in education are needed to promote contextually sensitive environmental citizenship.…”