Assessing Cognitive and Social Attitudes toward Environmental Conservation in Coral Reef Social-Ecological Systems

Kostas Alexandridis
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Kostas Alexandridis: Institute for Geocomputational Analysis and Statistics (GeoCAS), University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, VI 00802, USA

Social Sciences, 2018, vol. 7, issue 7, 1-32

Abstract: This study addresses the latent construct of attitudes toward environmental conservation based on study participant’s responses. We measured and evaluated the latent scale based on an 18-item scale instrument, over four experimental strata (N = 945) in the US Virgin Islands and the Caribbean. We estimated the latent scale reliability and validity. We further fitted multiple alternative two-parameter logistic (2PL) and graded response models (GRM) from Item-Response Theory. We finally constructed and fitted equivalent structural and generalized structural equation models (SEM/GSEM) for the attitudinal latent scale. All scale measures (composite, alpha-based, IRT-based, and SEM-based) were consistently and reliably valid measures of the study participants’ latent attitudes toward conservation. We found statistically significant differences among participant’s attributes relating to socio-demographic, physical, and core environmental characteristics of participants. We assert that the nature of relationship between cognitive attitudes and individual as well as social behavior related to environmental conservation.

Keywords: environmental attitudes; coral reefs; scale development; item-response theory; graded response model; social-ecological systems; reliability; generalized structural equation model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:7:y:2018:i:7:p:109-:d:155476

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