Significant life experiences on the formation of environmental action among Chinese college students

Abstract

Determining the factors that influence young adults’ engagement in environmental action is critical to further developing their active and important participation in environmental issues. In this paper, we designed two studies to identify life experiences of Chinese college students that foster environmental action. In Study 1, we used an open-ended survey to ask 34 young environmentally active citizens about the life experiences influencing their current engagement in environmental protection. In Study 2, we developed a significant life experience scale based on the results of Study 1 and recruited junior and senior students from seven universities to participate in an online questionnaire. We analyzed 606 valid questionnaires to understand whether the significant life experiences identified in Study 1 can distinguish environmentally committed students from other students and to what extent the significant life experiences can predict environmental action. Our results suggest that environmental organizations, college education, natural experiences and life principles could be important factors influencing the formation of environmental action, while other life experiences may also contribute to this process.

Keywords:

• environmental action
• significant life experiences
• environmental education
• college students

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the following people from surveyed universities for their assistance in facilitating the survey: Zheng Yingying, Gao Bin, Zhang Duo, Jiang Ning, Zhong Yanwei, Zheng Yi, Li Jing, Wang Chaofan, Fan Ao, Chen Cheng, Wu Shijing, Zhang li, Xiang Hui, Yue Ming, Wan Bin, Wang Yu, Li Wei, Li Guilan, Nong Peiyuan, Lin Qiqi, Wang Ziwei, Liu Jiayu, Qu Yi and Wei Yanan. We wish to thank Wang Ximin for his assistance in communicating with some young environmentally active citizens in Study 1. We thank all the survey participants for making the research possible. We acknowledge Pelin Kayaalp for polishing this article. We appreciate three anonymous reviewers’ thoughtful comments that improved this paper.