ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Environmental Awareness, Concern, Attitude
and Behavior of University Students:
A Comparison Across Academic Disciplines
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1
COMSATS University Islamabad, Sahiwal Campus, Sahiwal, Pakistan
2
University of Okara, Okara, Pakistan
3
Government College University, Faisalabad, Pakistan
Submission date: 2020-03-20
Final revision date: 2020-05-17
Acceptance date: 2020-05-19
Online publication date: 2020-09-26
Publication date: 2020-11-10
Corresponding author
Hafiz Muhammad Arshad
COMSATS University Islamabad, Sahiwal Campus, Sahiwal, COMSATS Road, 57000, Sahiwal, Pakistan
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2021;30(1):561-570
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ABSTRACT
Environmental issues such as global warming, air pollution and ozone depletion have become
global challenges. However, environmental awareness, environmental concern, environmental attitude
and environmental behavior of individuals, as well as their academic background knowledge, are
potential factors that may help in coping with these challenges. Here, we evaluated environmentalawareness,
concern, attitude and behavior of university students across the five academic disciplines
including arts & humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, biological sciences and environmental
sciences. Further, we investigated how environmental- awareness, concern, and attitude influence
the environmental behavior of individuals. Data was collected from 824 students of two public and
two private sector universities through a self-administered questionnaire. The level of environmental
awareness, environmental concern and environmental behavior of university students were found
significantly high, whereas, level of environmental attitude was significantly low. Levels of
environmental awareness, environmental concern and environmental behavior for all the five disciplines
were found adequately high, but the level of environmental attitude was high for only two groups, i.e.
physical sciences and biological sciences, and, low for three other groups. The group of biological
sciences was ranked at top in all the four cases of awareness, concern, attitude and behavior. Moreover,
the effects of environmental awareness and environmental concern on environmental behavior were
found significantly positive, whereas the effect of environmental attitude was significantly negative.