Environmental Protection Awareness and Practices of University College of MAIWP International (UCMI) Students

Abstract

Environmental issues are a problem that should be given serious attention by the community including college students. Environmental problems cannot be solved exclusively through scientific, technical and legal approaches. The direct participation and involvement of the wider community including college students, as part of the stakeholders, are very necessary. Generally, the community in Malaysia has a satisfactory level of environmental awareness, but the level of environmental protection practices is still low. Therefore, it is the interest of this paper to explore whether college students also have a high level of awareness and a low level of practices towards environmental protection. This paper discusses self-reported levels of awareness and practices towards environmental protection as well as the relationship between the level of awareness and practices among the first-year students of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University College of MAIWP International (UCMI). The data were obtained through a quantitative survey method. The questionnaires were distributed online using Google Form to 287 college students and 100 of them responded. A frequency analysis was conducted on the collected data to obtain frequency (n and %) and mean values, and a correlation analysis between the college students’ level of awareness and practices towards environmental protection was conducted to obtain correlation coefficient (r) and significant (p) values. The findings illustrated that the college students reported that they were highly aware of environmental protection, and their level of environmental protection practices was also high. However, the positive correlation coefficient between their environmental protection awareness and practices was weak although it was statistically significant.