A comparative study of environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviors among university students in China

Abstract

Environmental problems in China are intensifying and it is vital to evaluate the environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of the generation poised to inherit their management. This study examines a survey of environmental awareness among Chinese students (aged between 16 and 20 years). Considering the contrasting levels of regional economic development and environmental problems in the eastern/coastal and western/inland regions of China, we examine how environmental differences affect university students’ environmental awareness. Data were analyzed statistically using nonparametric tests to compare a population of urban residents from a developed region against a similar population of urbanites from a less-developed region. Students in the samples possessed rather low levels of environmental knowledge, but had positive environmental attitudes and were willing to commit to environment-friendly behaviors. Students growing up in developed versus less-developed settings had significantly different levels of general environmental awareness despite their shared exposure to institutionalized environmental education.

Keywords:

• environmental knowledge
• attitudes
• behavior
• environmental education
• development
• China

Notes

*Reliability is measured using Cronbach's alpha.

*Significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed).

**Significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed).

The questionnaires were presented to college students by their course instructors. The response rate was close to 100%. The questionnaire was created by the authors to reflect today's most pressing local and global environmental problems.

The hukou is a multi-tiered household registration system which divides all of the population into residents of rural or urban areas, and then groups the population into agricultural or nonagricultural according to their activity sector. As a result, China's population is classified as urban nonagriculture, urban agriculture, rural nonagriculture and rural agriculture hukou. In this paper, urban hukou refers to both the nonagricultural and agricultural residents. The origins and social consequences of China's hukou system are discussed, among others, by Cheng and Selden (1994), and Chan and Zhang (1999).