Environmental Attitudes Among Undergraduate Students: Implications for Environmental Literacy
DOI:
10.29303/jppipa.v12i10.15458Published:
2026-10-08Downloads
Abstract
Understanding environmental attitudes (EA) is important in higher education because universities play a significant role in shaping students’ environmental awareness and dispositions. Environmental attitudes are an important component of environmental literacy, which encompasses the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to understand and address environmental issues. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the environmental attitudes of undergraduate students from two universities in Labuhanbatu Regency, Indonesia (n = 312), and to analyze their association with selected demographic characteristics. A structured questionnaire was used to collect demographic information, while environmental attitudes were assessed using the 24-item Environmental Attitudes Inventory (EAI-24). The EAI-24 assesses 12 dimensions of environmental attitudes representing preservation- and utilization-oriented perspectives. The results showed that students’ environmental attitudes tended to favor utilization-oriented perspectives over conservation-oriented perspectives. Significant differences in environmental attitudes were also found across demographic characteristics, particularly gender and ethnicity. These findings indicate a weakness in the affective dimension of environmental literacy and highlight the need for context-sensitive environmental education that considers students’ demographic and cultural backgrounds. The findings have practical implications for developing targeted environmental education interventions to strengthen pro-environmental attitudes and behavior among university students
Keywords:
Environmental attitudes Environmental behaviour Ecology Environmental literacy Undergraduate studentsReferences
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