A PROBABILISTIC TOPIC MODEL ON ENERGY AND TRANSPORTATION SUSTAINABILITY PERCEPTIONS WITHIN SPANISH UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

Universities gather different social groups with diverse perceptionsabout sustainability issues. Higher Education institutions areinteresting organizations to observe emergent social trends related toenvironment.The behavior (inside and outside the university) of those universitystakeholders is related to their perceptions about universities.policies and procedures on sustainability. We focus our research on thestudents. perceptions on sustainability because of the actual and futurerole of students within the society.With 25 interviews (about 55,000 words), we elaborate a probabilistictopic model about the perceptions of a sample of Spanish universitystudents on energy and transportation sustainability referred to theirdaily activities in the campuses. Students deal with questions aboutrenewable energy, energy efficiency, recycled materials, or bicycle use.The method allows to obtain the main topics underlying the expressedstudents. perceptions. Corpus. analysis also shows some gaps betweenstudents. perceptions and behaviors. Conclusions are relevant not onlyto know more on students. perceptions about sustainability, but torecommend policies to universities and other organizations.