Alexandridis, K. Assessing Cognitive and Social Attitudes toward Environmental Conservation in Coral Reef Social-Ecological Systems. Soc. Sci.2018, 7, 109.
Alexandridis, K. Assessing Cognitive and Social Attitudes toward Environmental Conservation in Coral Reef Social-Ecological Systems. Soc. Sci. 2018, 7, 109.
Alexandridis, K. Assessing Cognitive and Social Attitudes toward Environmental Conservation in Coral Reef Social-Ecological Systems. Soc. Sci.2018, 7, 109.
Alexandridis, K. Assessing Cognitive and Social Attitudes toward Environmental Conservation in Coral Reef Social-Ecological Systems. Soc. Sci. 2018, 7, 109.
Abstract
This study addresses the latent construct of attitudes towards environmental conservation based on study participant’s responses. We measured and evaluated the latent scale based on an 18-item scale instrument, over four experimental strata (N=945) in the US Virgin Islands and the Caribbean. We estimated the latent scale reliability and validity. We further fitted multiple alternative two-parameter logistic (2PL) and graded response models (GRM) from Item-Response Theory. We finally constructed and fitted equivalent structural and generalized structural equation models (SEM/GSEM) for the attitudinal latent scale. All scale measures (composite, alpha-based, IRT-based and SEM-based) were consistently and reliably valid measures of the study participants’ latent attitudes toward conservation. We found statistically significant differences among participant’s attributes relating to socio-demographic, physical and core environmental characteristics of participants. We assert that the nature of relationship between cognitive attitudes and individual as well as social behavior related to environmental conservation.
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
