Progress in Measuring Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviours Concerning Sustainable Development Among Tenth Grade Students in Manitoba

Following up on Michalos et al. (Soc Indic Res 100(3): 391–413, 2011; Soc Indic Res 106(2): 213–238, 2012), we present standardized measures of tenth grade students’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviours concerning sustainable development as those concepts are understood in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO Education Sector in Framework for the UNDESD international implementation scheme. UNESCO, Paris, 2006) and we test the hypothesis that knowledge and favourable attitudes toward SD lead to favourable behaviours. Using a randomly drawn but not representative sample of 1,108 tenth grade students from the province of Manitoba, Canada, we crafted three indexes. There is a 20-item Index of Knowledge of SD with a good Cronbach α = 0.91, a 15-item Index of Attitudes Favourable Toward SD with an α = 0.81 and a 16-item Index of Behaviours Favourable Toward SD with an α = 0.81. About 25 % of the variation in our Behaviours Index scores could be accounted for by our Knowledge Index and Attitudes Index scores, with knowledge having relatively greater influence than attitudes.