Measuring Environmental Attitude and Behavior of Rural Communities: In the Case of Dendi Woreda

Berhanu, Damtew (2014) Measuring Environmental Attitude and Behavior of Rural Communities: In the Case of Dendi Woreda. Masters thesis, Addis Ababa University.

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Abstract

Environmental sustainability in Ethiopia depends on rural peoples support for long-term environmental management and conservation practices. In this regard assessing rural communities’ attitudes and behaviors, taking into account their needs, and respecting their opinions should become a management priority. The main purpose of this research was to examine the levels, differences and relationships of rural communities’ environmental attitudes and behaviors so as to help planners, stakeholders and researchers ways that will help ameliorate inconsistent degradation and overexploitation of natural resources in the country. To achieve these objectives 398 head of household’s age18 and above were randomly sampled from five rural kebeles found in Dendi Woreda. The respondents were assessed using six scales designed for assessing environmental attitude and behavior particularly for the purpose of this research. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient, Chi-square, and Structural equation model. All statistical operations were done by STATA Data Analysis Software version 12.1 for windows. The result of the study revealed that generally rural communities found to have high and very high level of environmental knowledge and pro-environmental intention; however, the study showed the level of environmental values for rural communities moderate. The study also revealed that a significant positive correlation between environmental knowledge and pro-environmental intention. On the other hand the study showed environmental value of rural communities’ significantly but negatively correlated with pro-environmental intention and environmental knowledge. The study also tested the proposed model of environmental attitude and pro-environmental behavior, and found that the overall goodness of fit of the model as the best fit. Moreover, the analysis of the effect of personal factors on environmental attitude using Pearson correlation coefficient and Chi-square test revealed age, gender, household size, marital status, education level, occupation, and size of land owned significantly related with at least one component of environmental attitude.

Item Type: Thesis (Masters)
Uncontrolled Keywords: Environmental Attitude, Environmental knowledge, Environmental Value, Pro-environmental Intention, Pro-environmental Behavior, Rural Communities, Dendi Woreda, Rural Kebele
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions: Africana
Depositing User: Emmanuel Ndorimana
Date Deposited: 19 Sep 2018 14:13
Last Modified: 19 Sep 2018 14:13
URI: http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/5404

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