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The effect of a special featured text on students' consciousness of the consequences of plastic garbage in a developing country : a field study in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

Berning, L. (2016) The effect of a special featured text on students' consciousness of the consequences of plastic garbage in a developing country : a field study in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.

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Abstract:In Nicaragua the natural environment and the health of the people suffer from the high garbage consumption and polluting garbage removal (garbage incineration). Especially plastic garbage is dangerous for people’s and animals’ health. Therefore a field study in San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua was developed and the research question “Can students’ consciousness of the risks of plastic garbage in San Juan del Sur be raised by reading a special featured text, when their consciousness was low before?” was chosen. Thereby research on how to raise people’s consciousness of the consequences of plastic garbage in San Juan del Sur was done, which showed that pro-environmental consciousness can be raised, by taking into account different theoretical concepts, such as one’s own well-being and kin altruism, the ‘Model of pro-environmental behaviour’ and the theory of well-being and sustainable pro-environmental behavior. Based on these findings a special featured text was developed in order to improve peoples’ consciousness and a questionnaire was created in order to measure the consciousness. Twenty-four students (8 – 14 years old) from two different schools in San Juan del Sur were divided into the experimental and the control group. The consciousness of the students was measured by a pretest, post-test (after the students in the experimental group read the special featured text, respectively after the students in the control group read a short story about three bears) and a follow-up test after four weeks. In order to analyze the data, the Mann-Whitney U test was used to measure the difference between the experimental and the control group The study found that the special featured text increased the students’ consciousness of the influences of plastic garbage in general and of burning plastic garbage on people’s and animals’ health, in short-term. But it is not clearly proved that the special featured text increased the students’ consciousness of the influences of plastic garbage in general and of burning plastic garbage on people’s and animals’ health, in short-term, when the students’ consciousness was low before.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology BSc (56604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/70079
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