Internal consistency and factorial structure of the New Revised Ecological Paradigm Scale on university students from the southeast of Mexico

Abstract

The New Revised Ecological Paradigm (NEP-R) scale translated into Spanish is a widely used instrument in various countries, cultures, and populations to measure people´s environmental beliefs. Given the discrepancy over its dimensionality reported in previous studies and because there are no reports of its psychometric properties of the NEP-R scale in Mexican university population were analysed. The scale was administered to 503 students of the Autonomous University of Carmen, from different federal entities of the Mexican southeast. The internal consistency (Cronbach´s α) of the NEP-R scale was analysed and an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with varimax rotation was performed. The finding revealed an optimal internal consistency coefficient (α = 0.702) and a 2-factor structure (ecocentrism and anthropocentrism), representing together 43.272% of the total variance in a 9-item version of the scale. It is concluded that the NEP.R scale is a useful tool. However, it is imperative to assess its reliability and dimensionality for different target populations.