Gender differences in environmental behaviors in China
Authors: Chenyang Xiao and Dayong Hong
Source: Population and Environment, Vol. 32, No. 1 (September 2010), pp. 88-104 Published by: Springer

Xiao, C., & Hong, D. (2010). Gender differences in environmental behaviors in China. Population and Environment, 32(1), 88-104.

This research example was conducted by Xiao and Hong in 2010, and delves into the topic of gender differences in environmental behaviors in China. The research question they proposed asked what the gender differences were in environmental behaviors in public and private settings in China. There were multiple types of data types needed to answer the proposed research question. The data consisted of reports of acts behavior and events to test environmentally conscious behaviors in and out of household, demographic data such as employment, age, gender, income, presence of kids in a family, residence and education level, and finally deeply held opinions and attitudes to test general environmental attitudes and beliefs in the New Environmental Paradigm scale. The methods used to gather data in this experiment were surveys and questionnaires, followed by in-depth interviews. Xiao and Hong used data from the 2003 Chinese General Social Survey, and then used a topic environmental module of their own to test environmental measures with more specificity. The data was analyzed by path analyses and eventually regression analyses to determine correlations between variables of environmental consciousness. Conclusions from this test revealed that Chinese women exhibit higher participation in environmentally oriented behaviors inside the home, consistent with studies in other settings. Yet, such a gender gap in environmental behaviors is not resultant of gendered difference in environmental concern, since women express lower levels of concern when compared to Chinese men.

I think this study was well done all together, however the only issue I have with the results section is that the sample taken for the survey population only represents half of the total Chinese population. One thing I found quite interesting is the finding that higher levels of knowledge regarding environmental issues did, indeed, translate into pro-environmental behaviors.

Values, Environmental Concern, and Environmental Behavior: A Study into Household Energy Use

Wouter Poortinga, Linda Steg, Charles Vlek

Poortinga, Wouter, Linda Steg, and Charles Vlek. “Values, environmental concern, and environmental behavior: A study into household energy use.” Environment and behavior 36.1 (2004): 70-93.

This research example examines the influence of specific world values on environmental behavior and concern related to the field of household energy use. It was conducted in 2004 by 3 researchers from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and University of East Anglia in the UK. Instead of proposing a defined research question (which could not be found in the article), the authors decided to state the aim of the study in the form of a declarative sentence. This stated that their investigation examines whether values, general environmental concern, and specific environmental beliefs are related to household energy use, the acceptability of specific energy-saving measures, and support for environmental policies. The type of data needed to answer the question includes reports of acts, behaviors or events, economic data, demographic data, self-identity data, deeply–held opinions and attitudes as well as personal feelings data. These data are all used to measure different scales of worldviews, quality of life, different beliefs regarding global warming, energy saving measures the respondents say that they participate in their daily life.

Data for this study were collected though a carefully designed questionnaire that was sent to 2,000 randomly selected addresses in the Netherlands, and in-depth interviews were conducted as a follow-up for some of the participants that wanted to go deeper with this study. Since the aim of the study is to determine specific correlations between certain variables, several regression analyses were conducted, with model variables being regressed with all preceding model variables as predictors. Analysis of the results revealed that home and transport energy use were especially related to socio-demographic variables like income and household size.

The overall structure of this research is very straightforward and understandable, however I did notice a few minor flaws in some of the specifics of the study. First, there was no defined research question, which I find quite odd. It was easy to interpret what question the authors were asking, but it should be given despite how easy the topic of study is. Second, the sample respondent’s answers used in the study didn’t accurately represent the entire population of the Netherlands. Lastly, the authors used the old New Environmental Paradigm scale, which contains questions that are considered to be outdated, so that may have caused some discrepancies in the results section of their paper. Something I think is interesting is that these authors found that using a purely attitudinal motivational model to explain environmental behavior may be too limited because environmental concern can be influenced by a great variety of factors. Therefor, concern for the environment may go deeper than we all initially think.

PREDICTORS OF TERTIARY LEVEL PERFORMANCE IN NON-ENGLISH SPEAKING BACKGROUND STUDENTS

Candidate: Richard Hewison, Dr. Elaine Chapman (Principal Supervisor) Prof. Tom O’Donoghue (Co-Supervisor)

Chapman, E., & O’Donoghue, T. Predictors of TERTIARY LEVEL Performance IN Non-English Speaking Background Students.

This research proposal, presented by Richard Hewison of the University of Western Australia, proposes to identify factors that predict academic performance of Non-English Speaking Background (NELB) international students in Australian tertiary education. The grounds for the purpose of the study reside with the myriad universities, which receive important financial contributions from international students, thus they have an obligation to identify the sources of the problems faced by students and to provide those students with appropriate and effective academic support. The research question designed for this topic asks, “to what extent do formalized English language Proficiency (ELP) scores act as predictors of academic performance in students’ first year of study in an Australian education system?”

The type of data necessary to answer the correlational research question consisted of demographic data, specifically relating to personal university profile; previous education; study stream and course units; university offer status; age; nationality; gender; and English Language Proficiency scores. The proposal also inquired for data about personal and psychological traits, and deeply held opinions and attitudes regarding self-efficacy, anxiety, beliefs about knowledge and learning, and personal learning styles and strategies. The former type of data were gathered from private records, with the data collection site being an unnamed, private tertiary education college specializing in business, information and mass communications courses in Western Australia. After extracted and coding the data into Excel spreadsheet files, the data was imported to SPSS for analysis, and a canonical correlation analysis was performed on the data with both the ELP levels and the demographic variables (age, gender, level of education previously attempted) entered as predictors. The latter type of data previously mentioned were proposed to be collected by sending out four modified surveys, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FCLAS), Schommer scale, Approaches to Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) survey, and the Self-Efficacy Scale. A three-panel model path analysis and cluster analysis was the proposed method to analyze this data.

This research proposal includes all necessary aspects of a quality research proposal, as well as considering and potentially addressing all possible ethical issues. What impressed me the most was the extensive description of the potential limitations, the significance of the study, and he even including an estimated cost and timeline of the study, which is something I never would have thought to include.

The impact of religious faith on attitudes to environmental issues and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies: A mixed methods study

Hope, Aimie LB, and Christopher R. Jones. “The impact of religious faith on attitudes to environmental issues and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies: A mixed methods study.” Technology in Society 38 (2014): 48-59.

This socio-environmental study was published in the journal of Technology in Society in 2014, and was conducted by Aimie Hope and Christopher Jones, who investigated the potential differences in environmental values and beliefs of people representing Christian, Muslim and secular communities. They began to explore this topic by asking two questions: (1) what were potential differences between the Muslim, Christian and secular participants in terms of pro-environmental values and beliefs; and (2) how attitudes to carbon capture storage (CCS) and climate change were shaped by religious beliefs. The type of data needed to answer the questions were deeply held opinions and attitudes as well as reports of acts, events and behaviors. Therefore, an exploratory mixed methods approach was utilized, combining in-depth focus group discussions with a short questionnaire, which incorporated topics from the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale that addresses themes surrounding anti-anthropocentrism; the reality of limits to growth; the rejection of exemptionalism; the possibility of eco-crisis; and the fragility of nature’s balance. The focus group discussions were recorded and transcribed and thematically examined, while the surveys were statistically analyzed through an NEP Template Analysis. The results revealed that both Christian and Muslim groups had relatively low perceptions of urgency for environmental issues due to beliefs in an afterlife and divine intervention while secular participants expressed anxiety in relation to environmental issues, especially climate change due to a lack of belief in an afterlife or divine intervention leading them to focus on human need for action.

Overall, this study is very comprehensive and studies many aspects of environmental issues and provides meaningful results, but I think the researchers could have surveyed many more participants and held a few more focus groups. Increasing participants in general would have definitely taken more time, but I personally don’t think 20 people could accurately represent the three different religious views accurately, so getting more people to increase the variation in responses would’ve been more interesting as well as providing a better foundation for results.

One thing I found quite interesting is that a few people from the Muslim and Christian faiths thought CCS was “interfering” with our environment, even though the constant release of fossil fuels into our atmosphere doesn’t matter too much. It just showed me how much religion can skew or enhance one’s views to a great extent.

Environmental Beliefs and Attitudes in Sweden and the Baltic States

Geoffrey D. Gooch

Gooch, Geoffrey D. “Environmental beliefs and attitudes in Sweden and the Baltic states.” Environment and behavior 27.4 (1995): 513-539.

This particular article studies the topic of environmental behavior in Europe and challenges the dominant sociocultural paradigms, or a group’s way of looking at the world, regarding specific environmental beliefs and attitudes in Sweden and the Baltic states of Latvia, and Estonia. This is a relatively old study, conducted in 1995 and published in a Environment and Behavior Sage Publishing journal online, which I uploaded in PDF form. The principal purpose of the study was to determine correlations (if any) that prevail between a number of specified beliefs and values and degree of environmental concern, and what the consistencies are of those beliefs and values. Since the study is measuring beliefs and attitudes, the type of data needed to answer the question are shallow opinions and attitudes or deeply held opinion and attitudes depending on the individual’s perception of environmental issues. The cities in which the research was conducted were urban populations in Tartu, Estonia, Riga, Latvia, and the county of Ostergotland, Sweden. The study uses a data-gathering method of surveys and in-depth interviews and it utilized three scales to measure values and beliefs, a 6-question version of the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale that measures “primitive” environmental beliefs and their differences, a four-item scale to measure support for environmental science and technology, and another four-item scale version of Ronald Inglehart’s “post-materialism scale.” Methods of data analysis used in this research consisted of statistical analyses or interval/ratio data since the survey data were transferred into a quantitative fashion. Results of the surveys conducted revealed that support for the NEP, distrust of science and technology, post-material values, and concern for environmental conditions were only partially supported by the results of the Swedish study, and, not at all in the case of the Baltic samples.

The study seemed to be pretty comprehensive and it accounted for a lot of variability between the cities being analyzed in an attempt to make it as controlled as possible. However, I feel like there could’ve been a few more cities analyzed in case one of the urban areas wasn’t an accurate sample of the survey population. One thing I find quite interesting is that socio-cultural symbolic representations of reported global problems is used as a fourth explanatory factor in determining environmental attitudes for individuals for this study.

Journal #2

The evolution of polyandry: multiple mating and female fitness in insects

Göran Arnqvist & Tina Nilsson

Arnqvist, Göran, and Tina Nilsson. “The evolution of polyandry: multiple mating and female fitness in insects.” Animal behaviour 60.2 (2000): 145-164.

This research article found in Animal Behavior examines the topic of the evolution of male and female insect mating rates. In an attempt to contest the predominant evolutionary belief that males increase their fitness (their individual reproduction and survival) by mating with many females and that females only need to mate with few males in order to increase their fitness, the authors ask what the direct effects of polyandry (female polygamy) are on female insects. A meta-analysis of 122 experimental studies addressing the direct effects of multiply mating on female fitness in insects was conducted to answer the question to this study. The type of data needed was reports of acts and behavior surrounding insect mating patterns and number of offspring taken. This information was taken from public and private research records from many institutions and organizations, with the method of data analysis being quantitative analysis since what is being measured is number of eggs produced in one lifetime. The results of this study indicate that females directly benefit from polyandry through increased egg production rate and fertility, however there is an optimal rate of polyandry and any further increase in sexual partners beyond that optimal point is damaging to the female insects. This conclusion is interesting in itself because it goes against the traditional male-female reproduction stereotypes, even though it is for insects. As a whole, this research is very thorough, it took data from over a hundred sources and those sources produced seemingly strong results and conclusions that were very relevant to the current environmental ecology field.

Recovery Potential of the Worlds Coral Reef Fishes

Aaron MacNeil, Nicholas A. J. Graham, Joshua E. Cinner, Shaun K. Wilson, Ivor D. Williams, Joseph Maina, Steven Newman, Alan M. Friedlander, Stacy Jupiter, Nicholas V. C. Polunin & Tim R. McClanahan

An examination of coral reef management techniques and reef resilience was conducted and published in Nature: The International Journal of Science. The question the authors attempt to answer is; what ecological management techniques support reef resilience and increase overall fish biomass while meeting conservation benchmarks? This question is being asked because large-scale fishing operations have been the primary source of diminished reef functionality across the globe, resulting in cascading ecological problems since coral reefs support more species than any other marine habitat in the world. Calls to recover fish biomass and therefor reestablish reef functionality have been vocalized by environmentalists everywhere, so the purpose of the study was to set empirical conservation benchmarks and develop fish biomass recovery timelines for protected and unprotected regions of coral reef habitats. The researchers compiled private and public organizational data from 64 countries and territories regarding 832 coral reefs, and used a Bayesian estimation approach to analyze the data of global fished and un-fished biomass to determine recovery potential of the 800+ coral reefs. The results demonstrated that crucial coral reef ecosystem functions could be maintained through multiple fishery restrictions, and reef fish biomass has the potential to recover within 35 years on average and less than 60 years when heavily depleted.

Although this research was meant for an audience with experience in the field of ecology, it was reasonably easy to read and contained no bias. The authors did not include what types of fish management techniques could be combined for the best possible result or any other ways to build on top of the research. One fact that caught my attention in the research was that 83% of commercially fished coral reefs are missing more than half their expected biomass, which has severe consequences for ecosystem functions and predation.