Assessing Attitudes Toward Sustainability

ECO Project for Erasmus +.

INTRODUCTION
By the word attitude, we mean a set of feelings, prejudices, ideas and beliefs a person expresses on a given topic.
But, here is a question: assessing attitudes is not simple, because what is to be evaluated and measured is not data or facts, but abstract and complex realities.

An attitude cannot be “seen” directly: it must be inferred from the opinions a person expresses verbally on some key aspects of the attitude we intend to assess.
The tools that allow to gather these key aspects are called indicators, i.e. simple concepts, describing the different elements of an attitude.

A complete and coherent array of indicators must be arranged, in order to assess an attitude effectively,
To do so, we use scales, i.e. sets of items, each one indicating a concept. Therefore, an item is a single question or statement concerning a concept, while a scale is the whole set of items (questions or statements) of a survey.

We will use a 5-steps Likert scale.
In order to measure attitudes towards sustainable behaviors via Likert scales, respondents are presented with a set of statements about environment and eco-friendly behavior, and asked to express their opinion about them.

Each answer is assigned a score (e.g., 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 or 4, 3, 2, 1, 0).
E.g., consider a statement such as “Sustainable development should be a priority”; the respondent can choose answers ranging from “strongly disagree” (score 1), to “neither agree nor disagree” (score 2), “agree to a certain extent” (score 3), “agree” (score 4), or “strongly agree” (score 5).

The sum (or mean) of a given informant's scores represents his/her position on the environment’s problem: the higher the score, the more eco-friendly the attitude.
In order to make analysis as simple as possible, it would be better to arrange items in an increasing order: so, a lower score indicates a low environmental awareness, and vice versa.
Now, let's see how to design the questionnaire.
DESIGNING THE QUESTIONNAIRE
STEP 1: ANALYZING ATTITUDES AND DEVISING INDICATORS
The first step is to define clearly what “environmental awareness” is, so to analyze the relative attitude in all its facets.
What ideas, feelings, values or prejudices are evoked by the topic of sustainability?
In our present research, we should try to be as thorough and consistent as possible, so to choose the best set of indicators, by which to construct the questionnaire's items.

STEP 2: CONSTRUCTING ITEMS
We should find statements that allow us to measure the sample’s point of view on that particular indicator.
Such statements must be clear and concise, in order to reduce misunderstandings or wrong interpretations.
Each statement will show the 5 options in order of agreement.
STEP 3: SELECTING THE SAMPLE
To obtain reliable results, the questionnaire should be submitted to a sample that is representative of the population (or, technically, the “statistical universe”) we intend to study, to assess it behaviors and attitudes.
E.g., to assess the environmental awareness of the teenagers in a given European country, we can choose them random in schools, gyms or other public places.
The higher number of questionnaires we collect, the lower the risk of a statistical error.

STEP 4: SUBMITTING THE QUESTIONNAIRE
Before submitting a questionnaire, we must inform the interviewee about the scientific purpose of the research, without influencing his/her opinions on that topic. Then, we must tell him/her that the questionnaire is anonymous and that data will be treated in an aggregate form.
Once the questionnaire has been filled out, the respondent folds the sheet and inserts it in a box.

STEP 5: ANALYZING DATA
We need to prepare a matrix (e.g., by Excel), in which each statement is written down in the left column, with the associated scores on the right.
Each single spreadsheet will be used for a single questionnaire. The sum of the scores on the right column will indicate the degree of environmental awareness of a given interviewee, i.e., his/her attitude on that topic.
By confronting the whole sets of data in the spreadsheet (i.e., the mean score of the interviewees), we will be able to measure the degree of awareness displayed by that population (or statistical universe).

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