Higher education institutions (HEIs) have central role on the road of societal transition toward a sustainable future. They are responsible for preparing current university students, i.e. future leaders, to cope with global environmental challenges, and by the means of their social capital they also play an active role in the current socio-economical processes. Hence they actively shape current and future, as well as regional and national sustainability related innovations and policies (Radinger-Peer & Pflitsch 2017). One of the main driver for sustainability societal transitions in the hand of HEIs is sustainability related education (ESD) including formation of views, attitudes, knowledge and practices. However, the potential of ESD is not sufficiently resorted in many higher education institutions due to several barriers that are delaying sustainability transition in HEIs (Lozano et al. 2013, Blanco-Portela et al. 2017). During the integration of ESD to universities and to their curricula, it would be crucial to know on the attitudes and expectations of students in different study majors. Unfortunately, we have very limited knowledge on how study major are related to students’ environmental concerns, attitudes, values and pro-environmental behaviours (altogether environmentalism hereafter).

In the few study that investigated links between academic major and environmentalism researches used only a few categories of study majors and were based only on a few HEIs (e.g. Lang 2011, Zuk & Zuk 2017, Chuvieco et al. 2018, Hansmann et al. 2020). Moreover, many of these studies used only a limited number of measures for assessing environmentalism. In this study, using a large central European sample (N=7174) from more than 15 HEIs we investigated differences of students’ environmentalism using 8 different well established measures and 8 additional questions in order to understand aspects of environmentalism (see Methods).

Main Research Questions:

What pattern concerning environmental attitudes, pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) and some related measures (e.g. materialism, willingness to sacrifice, priority views for economic growth) can be found among students learning different academic majors? Are these patterns markedly different if we investigate different institutions? How measures of environmentalism change from first to final grade students according to different study majors?

An anonymous online questionnaire (based on the ethical permission 2020-129 of the Hungarian United Ethical Review Committee for Research in Psychology) was administered to Hungarian university students during 2020. Universities and/or faculties were reached based on availability, students completed the survey on a voluntary basis. The questionnaire included four measures for environmental attitudes (utilization, preservation, willingness to sacrifice, appreciation of nature; according to Bogner 2018, and Mónus 2021), one for values (materialism; Kasser 2005), two different measures for pro-environmental behaviour (adapted based on Mónus 2021), and one for assessing the extent of understanding biodiversity (adapted from Johnson & Manoli 2008). Other self-developed questions assessed students’ views on prioritizing economic growth, techno-optimistic view on environmental issues, perceived future threats, purchase motivation, link of diseases and lifestyle, and several socio-economic background variables. Based on study major of students 14 categories were set up. Data were analysed using simple linear models (in R statistical and computing environment).

All measures of environmentalism significantly differ among student categories by their study major. According to multiple measures, environmentalism seems to be consistently high in majors related to applied environmental sciences, science teachers, agricultural, and biological sciences, and consistently low in majors related to informatics and law. Elementary pre-service teachers and students in traditional science and arts academic majors achieved high scores only on some scales, while environmental conscious scores of students in sport and health sciences were quite ambiguous. Pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) seems to be have low level in students learning traditional arts, engineering, and technical majors independently of their environmental attitudes. Techno-optimism was reported to be the more pronounced by students learning traditional sciences, informatics, and technical majors. Further analyses are in progress in order to investigate patterns among different institutes and among students of different grade. Results confirmed that students’ environmentalism differ considerably according to their study major. However, different measures revealed quite different pattern among student categories. For instance, applying PEBs in the everyday life shows very different pattern from that we can expect based solely on the attitudes. Based on our results we encourage universities to increase their efforts in sustainability related education, especially in the following disciplines: agricultural studies, informatics, economics/finance/marketing, law, and engineering. Educational staff should work to establish sustainability related specific knowledge and to enhance its transmission in the field of every academic disciplines (Worldwatch Institute 2017), that would also contribute to enhance pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour in students.

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