Impacts of an Environmental Course on Undergraduate Engineering Students' Attitudes

Engineers may play a significant role in developing solutions to current and future global environmental issues. Prior research examines differences in environmental attitudes among varied groups of students, including undergraduates. In some studies, engineering students have demonstrated less positive environmental attitudes than students studying natural sciences, such as biology or geology. This may be due to the difference in content in engineering programs or self-selection into the major, since those with strong environmental interests may choose an environmental major. Previous research indicates that women are more likely to have pro-environmental attitudes then men; on average, more men than women enroll in engineering programs, which could contribute to this difference among engineering majors. If engineers do not feel that the environment issues are significant, they may be less likely to work on addressing them. Environmental attitudes are important because they may be lead to behavior change. This study explored the impacts of an environmental studies course on attitudes of students at a STEM-focused school, particularly looking at the difference between engineers and non-engineers and male and female students.

The researchers used the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) survey in this study. To gauge attitudes, the survey lists 15 statements about human-nature relationships and measures the degree to which a person agreed or disagreed with those statements. One example of these statements is, “Humans were meant to rule over the rest of nature.” Additional topics on the NEP include whether resources are limited, whether population has limited potential for growth, whether nature exists for humans, whether the balance of nature is fragile, whether industry is exempt from the constraints of the environment, and the whether an environmentally-related crisis is likely.

This study took place at a medium-sized public university that focused on engineering. Study participants were drawn from nine sections across two semesters (fall 2008 and spring 2009) of an introductory environmental course; each had the same syllabus. The researchers administered pre- and post-course surveys to determine whether student attitudes changed as a result of taking an introductory environmental course. There were 370 participants in the pre-course survey and 318 at the end of the course. Of these, 82% were male and 62% were enrolled in the engineering school at the university. The researchers analyzed the data using statistics, and explored the differences between engineers and non-engineers and between males and females.

The study found an average increase in pro-environmental attitudes after taking the course. Students were more likely to agree with statements regarding nature being in a fragile balance, the existence of resource constraints, and an ecological crisis after the course. As the researchers anticipated, females participants had more positive attitudes than males. Engineers, who generally held less positive attitudes before the course, showed significant increases in pro-environmental attitudes after the course. Non-engineers also showed a significant improvement in their attitudes after taking the course. The category about limited nature of growth (regarding population, for example) showed the most negative attitudes at the beginning of the course but saw the greatest increase. The authors found no significant differences in results among the class sections.

This study may have different results with different participants or syllabus. The short-term nature of the study provided no evidence about whether the attitudinal changes were long lasting. The study also did not examine students' intentions or behaviors, but used the principle that attitude may indicate behavior. Thus, we cannot know for sure if their behavior changed. Additionally, the study does not indicate whether the students may have been taking other environmental courses, which could impact their environmental attitudes.

The researchers recommend that environmental education be integrated into the curriculum for engineering schools. By improving environmental attitudes among engineering students, they may be inspired to seek solutions to environmental challenges. The findings indicated that the students believed they could overcome the challenge of limited resources as well as other environmental problems. These feelings of self-efficacy may have stemmed from the course exploring ways that technology and engineering could help alleviate environmental problems, which may have been empowering for engineering students.