Multinomial-Regression Modeling of the Environmental Attitudes of Higher Education Students Based on the Revised New Ecological Paradigm Scale

Abstract

Higher education is increasingly interested in its impact on the sustainability attributes of its students, so we wanted to explore how our students’ environmental concern changed during their higher education experiences. We used the Revised New Ecological Paradigm Scale (NEP) with 505 students and developed and tested a multinomial regression model to help us to understand what can be measured and how to interpret changes. Our results demonstrate that even small differences, not apparent when only mean NEP scores are reported for cohorts of students, can be modeled to reveal statistically significant trends. We advise further exploration of this instrument and its applicability to higher education's quest for sustainability-credibility.

Keywords:

• ecological worldview
• environmental attitudes
• multinomial logistic regression

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors wish to acknowledge the support of many university undergraduates who willingly and anonymously contributed.