Characterizing the Energy-Saving Behaviors, Attitudes and Awareness of University Students in Macau

Shujie Zhao, Qingbin Song and Chao Wang
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Shujie Zhao: Macau Environmental Research Institute, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau 999078, China
Qingbin Song: Macau Environmental Research Institute, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau 999078, China
Chao Wang: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory on Functional Soft Condensed Matter, School of Materials and Energy, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 22, 1-11

Abstract: Currently, energy and its usage are the primary environmental issues in all countries and regions. As a special social group, university students not only have extremely high energy consumption needs, but they have more advanced consumption concepts. Understanding their energy-saving characteristics could provide foresight for predicting the energy-saving characteristics of future residents. Using data collected from 737 valid questionnaires, from five typical universities in Macau, this study investigated university students' energy-saving behaviors, attitudes and awareness, and analyzed the possible influencing factors. The results showed that the energy-saving behaviors and attitudes of respondents from five university were nearly the same. Meanwhile, 75.98% of the respondents clearly recognized that energy-savings behaviors are closely related to their daily study and life, and 96.61% of the university students thought that it is very necessary to save energy. In addition, 92.94% of students thought it was necessary to carry out energy-saving education in universities. The regression analysis indicated that “the relationship between energy-saving awareness and daily life” and “the necessity of energy-saving education” are positively correlated with the energy-saving awareness at the significance level of 1%, whereas the energy-saving behaviors, “give priority to energy-saving products” and “shut down your computer when going out”, are positively correlated with energy-saving awareness at the significance level of 10% and 5%, respectively. Finally, we proposed effective suggestions for raising the awareness of saving energy among university students.

Keywords: energy-saving awareness; behavior and attitude; questionnaire survey; university student; Macau (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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