Investigation of Attitude About Nuclear and Renewable Energy by Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling

Abstract

In the study, the effects of university students' environmental concerns, nuclear power plants and renewable energy attitudes on sustainable consumption behavior were investigated with partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). For this purpose, a research model was designed with literature search and various hypotheses were developed to test the model relations. In the proposed model, sustainable consumption behavior is defined as endogenous, environmental concern is exogenous, and others are defined as endogenous latent variables. In the study, the proposed research model was analyzed using PLS-SEM and the suitability of the proposed model was evaluated according to various compliance measures. The model was analyzed separately for statistics department and engineering faculty students. In the statistical department model, one-unit increase in environmental concern causes 0.39 unit, 0.60 unit increase in attitudes towards economic and environmental dimension of renewable energy, respectively. In the engineering students model, these coefficients were calculated as 0.40 and 0.57, respectively. In addition, when the effect of economic and environmental attitudes towards renewable energy on sustainable consumption behavior is analyzed, it is determined that only economic dimension is meaningful (0.46) for statistical section and both dimensions are significant for engineering students. It was calculated that a one-unit increase in the attitudes of the engineering students towards the economic and environmental dimensions of renewable energy would lead to an increase of 0.24 and 0.23 units respectively in the sustainable consumption behavior.

Keywords

• nuclear energy
• partial least squares structural equation modeling
• renewable energy
• sustainable consumption behavior