A Research to Determine Environmental Approaches of University Students: Manisa Celal Bayar University Case

Abstract

It is observed that technological developments have resulted in several global environmental problems. The balance of the nature has been destroyed and some species has been died out because of such environmental problems. As the environmental problems and their effects have been felt intensively, the determination of people's attitudes towards environment are of greater importance than ever before. New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale is widely used in the literature to determine environmental attitudes of the people. In this study, it is aimed to determine the attitudes of university students towards environment using the NEP scale and to determine the relationship between these attitudes and several characteristics of the students such as demography, economic situation, sport activity engaged, smoking, eco-friendly product consumption, saving and membership of an environmental association. The target group of the study is the students of Manisa Celal Bayar University. The questionnaire prepared in the study was applied to a total of 420 students selected by the sampling method among the students studying at the university. From the scale used, four factors called ”supremacy of humanity“, ”environmental disaster”, “supremacy of nature“, “technological superiority” were obtained and then several hypotheses have been developed to analyze the differences in terms of demographical properties of the respondents with respect to the factors mentioned. The hypotheses developed also serve for establishing relationships among the parameters such as sport activity engaged, smoking, eco-friendly product consumption, saving and membership of an environmental association. As a result, it is found that there is significant relationship in 18 of the hypotheses developed.

Keywords

• environment
• ecological approach
• new ecological paradigm scale