A survey of awareness and behaviour in regard to environmental issues among Selçuk University students in Konya, Turkey

The purpose of this study was to determine students' awareness environmental issues and problems and their behaviour towards the environment at Selçuk University, Turkey. For this purpose, an instrument of 18 items were designed and tested on a sample of 375 students from 12 faculties of the university. As the result of the survey; global warming (27.74%) is seen as the most important environmental problem in the world, while depletion of natural resources (25.33%) and mistaken of urbanization (28.00%) were mentioned as the most important environmental problems in Turkey and in Konya, respectively. The students mostly agreed on (47.47%) the education of the people as the most appropriate and imminent solution that can be taken against the problems while printers and electronic media is regarded as the most intriguing equipment (73.73%) that boosts people's awareness. It is also determined that students are concerned about the environmental issues and present positive behaviour towards them. Only 8.53% of the students, participated in the survey, regularly follow the publications about the environment, while just 7.73% of students are holding a membership to an environmental organization. © 2006 Asian Network for Scientific Information.