Students’ Perception of Campus Sustainability …
293
introduction session, the sustainability of HEIs is composed of the seven following
dimensions: (1) Education; (2) Research; (3) Campus operations; (4) Institutional
framework; (5) On-campus experience; (6) Outreach; (7) Assessment and reporting.
43 items were generated through literature review, based on the works of Findler et al.
(2019), Emanuel and Adams (2011), Lozano (2006a), Lozano and Young (2013),
Nejati and Nejati (2013), Luiz et al. (2015), Savelyeva and Douglas (2017) and
Thomashow (2014).
Once the set of items derived from the literature review was identified, the next
step was the design of a final questionnaire comprising 51 items of which five were
demographic (course, age, gender, income, education); three dichotomous questions
to measure student connection with sustainability in the course; and the 43 items
identified in Step 1. For the 43 multi-item scale, responses were provided using a
five-point Likert-type scale from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree with a (3)
neutral response option. Thus, the survey was refined through a pilot test, applying
it to a reduced sample of 12 individuals to evaluate the following criteria: (a) assess
respondent’s reaction and understanding of the items and variables allocated on
the questionnaire; (b) obtain feedback with regard to content, length, arrangement,
wording accuracy and relevance. As a result of this phase, two items were rewritten
to improve wording accuracy.
In Step 3, the final questionnaire was administered by a structured and assisted
survey to a sample of 207 undergraduate students of 12 courses of engineering
provided by the case study Brazilian university (Table 3).
After data collection, a statistical analysis of the results was conducted in Step 4. In
this phase, as will be demonstrated in the results section, other items were discarded
due to their lack of statistical adherence to the proposed tool. Finally, the methods
adopted presented some limitations. For instance, the sample size and composition,
although allowing the analyses performed, limited the possibility of generalising the
results to other HEIs and to students other than engineering; the survey was designed
to be comprehensive for the majority of respondents, however it may be challenging
for some respondents to have enough knowledge about all topics addressed in the
survey.
6 Results and Discussion
6.1 Principal Component Analysis
For grouping the items into their specific dimensions, the principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on the 43 items of the scale. To assess the factorability of
the data and to ensure the adequacy of the sampling, Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity and
the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Measure of Sampling Adequacy were applied. The
Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity analyses whether the correlation matrix has significant
correlations among at least some of the variables and it is significant (p < 0.05) for
293
introduction session, the sustainability of HEIs is composed of the seven following
dimensions: (1) Education; (2) Research; (3) Campus operations; (4) Institutional
framework; (5) On-campus experience; (6) Outreach; (7) Assessment and reporting.
43 items were generated through literature review, based on the works of Findler et al.
(2019), Emanuel and Adams (2011), Lozano (2006a), Lozano and Young (2013),
Nejati and Nejati (2013), Luiz et al. (2015), Savelyeva and Douglas (2017) and
Thomashow (2014).
Once the set of items derived from the literature review was identified, the next
step was the design of a final questionnaire comprising 51 items of which five were
demographic (course, age, gender, income, education); three dichotomous questions
to measure student connection with sustainability in the course; and the 43 items
identified in Step 1. For the 43 multi-item scale, responses were provided using a
five-point Likert-type scale from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree with a (3)
neutral response option. Thus, the survey was refined through a pilot test, applying
it to a reduced sample of 12 individuals to evaluate the following criteria: (a) assess
respondent’s reaction and understanding of the items and variables allocated on
the questionnaire; (b) obtain feedback with regard to content, length, arrangement,
wording accuracy and relevance. As a result of this phase, two items were rewritten
to improve wording accuracy.
In Step 3, the final questionnaire was administered by a structured and assisted
survey to a sample of 207 undergraduate students of 12 courses of engineering
provided by the case study Brazilian university (Table 3).
After data collection, a statistical analysis of the results was conducted in Step 4. In
this phase, as will be demonstrated in the results section, other items were discarded
due to their lack of statistical adherence to the proposed tool. Finally, the methods
adopted presented some limitations. For instance, the sample size and composition,
although allowing the analyses performed, limited the possibility of generalising the
results to other HEIs and to students other than engineering; the survey was designed
to be comprehensive for the majority of respondents, however it may be challenging
for some respondents to have enough knowledge about all topics addressed in the
survey.
6 Results and Discussion
6.1 Principal Component Analysis
For grouping the items into their specific dimensions, the principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on the 43 items of the scale. To assess the factorability of
the data and to ensure the adequacy of the sampling, Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity and
the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Measure of Sampling Adequacy were applied. The
Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity analyses whether the correlation matrix has significant
correlations among at least some of the variables and it is significant (p < 0.05) for