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Environmental citizenship perception and behavior among university engineering students in the Marmara Region of Turkey

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Abstract

In this study, we investigate the perception and behavior levels of environmental citizenship of university students between the ages of 18–25. The target population was selected as the students of engineering faculties in İstanbul and Sakarya provinces, which are in the Marmara Region of Turkey. In this scope, we develop a sophisticated questionnaire that allows some variables such as the socioeconomic structure and the educational status of the parents to assess the current environmental behavior and thoughtfulness of the individual and publish online to receive the response. We analyze the quantitative data using the descriptive technique. Exploratory factor analysis was used to detect the factors that underlie a dataset based on the correlations between questionnaire items. Independent t test and one-way of variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze the quantitative data. We determine that there is a significant difference among the students’ environmental thought in terms of gender, the participation of voluntary environmental organizations, voluntary in the family, education level of father and the students’ environmental behavior in terms of the education level of the mother. We also find that there is a significant difference between students studying in engineering faculties and environmental engineering students in terms of some environmental behavior.

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(modified from Sansal 2019)

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Acknowledgements

This study is based on the environmental citizenship idea, which is also main working topic of COST ENEC CA16229 Action. Therefore, the authors would like to thank the project leaders Dr. Andreas Hadjichambis and Dr. Pedro Reis, who established a researcher network relevant to this working topic in Europe.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Energy Politics and Market Research Center, Faculty of Engineering, Istanbul Aydın University, 34295, Sefakoy, İstanbul, Turkey

    Hasan Volkan Oral

  2. Anadolu BIL Vocational School, Istanbul Aydın University, 34295, Sefakoy, İstanbul, Turkey

    Özge Eren

  3. Department of Environmental Engineering, Sakarya University, Esentepe Campus, 54187, Sakarya, Turkey

    A. Suna Erses Yay

  4. Application and Research Center for Advanced Studies, İstanbul Aydın University, 34295, Sefakoy, İstanbul, Turkey

    Hasan Saygın

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  1. Hasan Volkan Oral
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  2. Özge Eren
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  3. A. Suna Erses Yay
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  4. Hasan Saygın
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Correspondence to Hasan Volkan Oral or Hasan Saygın.

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Oral, H.V., Eren, Ö., Yay, A.S.E. et al. Environmental citizenship perception and behavior among university engineering students in the Marmara Region of Turkey. Environ Dev Sustain 23, 3638–3652 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-00736-8

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