A meta-analysis of global youth environmental knowledge, attitude and behavior studies

Abstract

There is a considerable body of literature on research on environmental knowledge, attitude and action. A lot of research has occurred on the primary and secondary school populations and the general population. However, much less emphasis has been placed on studies that concern post-compulsory education students in the range from 16 to 18 years old. The purpose of this review was to give an overview of environmental knowledge, attitude and action research with a particular emphasis on youth. The findings of a majority of studies reported a positive attitude towards the environment and a variety of levels of environmental knowledge. Behavior was not extensively studied. A number of studies found that females had a more positive attitude towards the environment than males. The majority of studies indicate that the main sources of environmental information for youth are television, books, newspapers, schools and friends. The main environmental problems mentioned by students were air pollution, water pollution, the loss of biological diversity and “population increase in the big cities” and hazardous waste. Most studies used quantitative techniques to gather data. The most commonly used instrument was a questionnaire with multiple choice questions and a Likert type scale particularly to measure attitudes. Considering the mainly quantitative nature of these studies, more appropriate sampling strategies, contextualized research instruments and statistical analysis should have been carried out to ensure more robust statistical findings.