Campus sustainability is essential for any university. Campus sustainability denotes the potential of the university to develop new ideas regarding sustainability through research, teaching, and practices. It necessitates improved academic infrastructures, setting right faculty priorities and practices that ensure that the university community is aware of sustainable practices, and that its practices reflect sustainability. This study assesses college students' knowledge and awareness of sustainability issues. After IRB approval, data were collected using the campus sustainability questionnaire. Students from a university in the southeastern part of Texas in the United States were selected and asked to participate in the study voluntarily by answering a self-report questionnaire. Findings indicate that only a minority of the students knew what sustainability was, but 95.8% indicated it was important. Although the university has committed to climate and sustainability agreements, majority of the students were not aware of it and only about 17% knew that the University's Strategic Plan has a sustainability component. Nearly 36% of the students reported receiving information about sustainability during their campus orientation. In terms of recycling, majority of the students indicated unawareness of e-waste recycling on campus; however, more than 70% reported that the library limited free printing in computer labs. More than half of the students also indicated that sustainability issues were not infused into curriculum courses or programs, and they had no knowledge of any alternative power source for the university. We concluded that a majority of the students were not conversant with sustainability issues and were largely unaware of campus sustainability initiatives. We recommended more effort to increase sustainability initiatives on campus by involving faculty, staff, and students in such endeavors. Educational programs should incorporate sustainability into their curriculum to increase students' knowledge and consciousness regarding these issues.

No abstract

This cross-sectional descriptive study assessed general environmental health literacy among students focusing on their knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors regarding the environmental health, stewardship, and sustainability, using a questionnaire consisting of 35 core questions from the Centers for Diseases Control (CDCs). Students (N = 185) from three high schools in the district were asked through their class teachers to voluntarily complete the questionnaire. Results indicated that about 41% (n = 77) of the students lacked knowledge regarding potential sources of radiation exposure and 70% (n = 133) lacked knowledge regarding radon gas being the number one risk factor for lung cancer among non-smokers. Additionally, the ANOVA test indicated significant knowledge differences among school location. Students in school #1, located in the most affluent area, had significantly higher knowledge scores (M = 4.39) than school #2 located in a moderately affluent area (M = 3.50). Furthermore, we found significant differences in ethnicity on the environmental health attitude of the high school students. Black students reported lower positive environmental health attitude (M = 29.86) than White students (M = 32.63), Hispanic students (M = 32.33) and Asian students (M = 33.84). These findings demonstrated knowledge deficiency in some key areas in environmental health particularly the environmental diseases and conditions caused by manmade hazards such as pesticides, chemicals, radiation, air, water, and soil pollution. Targeted educational interventions to increase awareness and understanding of health effects, exposure to environmental hazards and carcinogens as well as risks associated to direct exposure as in this study, radon and radiation, should be provided to high school students. Practical education through tours where students can observe directly and participating in laboratory experiments could empower the students to translate this knowledge into positive environmental health behaviors and practices now and in the future.

One of the controversial methodological topics in the social and behavioral sciences is the (ab)use of Likert Scale items, Likert-type items and ranked ordered response categories. The debate is whether parametric tests can be legitimately conducted on technically ordinal response categories that are represented with numbers. Participants answered survey questions on moral disengagement, where we changed the intervals of seven response categories and tested whether assigning numbers made any difference in two separate studies. The results showed that participants’ ratings were not significantly different with or without numbers. Participants tend to covertly superimpose numbers where none were provided. Also, there were no significant interactions between assignment of numbers and ‘intervalness’. However, ratings were significantly different between two key interval groups. Knowing the assumptions of respondents to these Likert items even without numbers could inform researchers especially if parametric tests are to be conducted.

Advancements in technology have allowed for more efficient methods of testing and assessment. In particular, remotely delivered assessments can be taken on mobile or nonmobile devices in addition to traditional pencil and paper tests. This has led to an increased interest in the comparability of mobile and nonmobile devices on performance outcomes. A variable to consider in performance outcomes on a mobile or nonmobile device is proctoring. There is evidence for both proctored and unproctored conditions leading to better performance outcomes. The present study compared performance on a remotely delivered assessment across mobile and nonmobile devices in proctored and unproctored conditions. Participants were randomly assigned to take a remotely delivered cognitive ability test on either a mobile or nonmobile device in a proctored or unproctored condition. Results indicated that participants tended to perform similarly regardless of the device type or proctoring. Implications are that organizations should consider testing job applicants via mobile devices because performance on a high stakes assessment tends to be similar to testing on a traditional desktop or laptop. Further validation of these results could allow companies to reduce hiring costs by remotely delivering assessments to applicants' own devices.