High school students' knowledge and its influence on attitude towards biodiversity at waterfront cities in Malaysia

Abstract

In many cases, urbanization at waterfronts causes conflict that has an impact on its biodiversity. Therefore, the younger generation needs to understand the balance between development and biodiversity at the waterfronts. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate high school students’ knowledge and their attitude towards biodiversity at waterfront cities. Data was collected from 751 high school students (male = 379, female = 372) in three states in Malaysia. A self-developed questionnaire with 25 items was administered to gauge information from the students. We also investigate the influence of their knowledge on attitude as well as the effect of gender. Results showed that the students have high knowledge and positive attitude towards biodiversity at waterfront cities. Knowledge was found to be the significant predictor that explains 13.4% variance in attitude towards biodiversity. Besides that, female students are found to have significantly higher knowledge score than male students, but there was no significant difference in their attitude towards biodiversity. Therefore, we suggest that continuous biodiversity awareness programs should be rooted in school activities to ensure that waterfronts cities preserve their biodiversity.