Can environmental education increase student-athletes’ environmental behaviors?

Abstract

Environmental education was incorporated within a mentoring program (i.e. treatment group) for student-athletes at the University of Georgia. These student-athletes’ environmental attitudes, behavioral intent, knowledge, self-efficacy, self-regulatory learning, motivation, and learning strategies were assessed before and after their environmental education mentoring program. Results indicated student-athletes in the treatment group improved their self-reported environmental behaviors (t(32) = 2.34, p = 0.03) and self-efficacy (t(32) = 2.07, p = 0.04). However, future research should seek to determine how traits of student-athletes, such as their gender and chosen sport, may impact their level of environmental literacy and any possible impacts due to their mentors’ environmental values.

Keywords:

• Environmental behavior
• environmental education
• student-athletes

Acknowledgements

This research was conducted with support from the Rankin Smith Student-Athlete Academic Center at the University of Georgia. The authors wish to acknowledge other members of Gary T. Green’s lab and colleagues, including Kris. M. Irwin and Puneet Dwivedi, as well as Kevin Kirsche from the Office of Sustainability. This manuscript is based on data also used in the first author’s master’s thesis.