Abstract

USING A LIKERT SCALE TO MEASURE ” E N V I RON ME N T A L R E S PO N S I BI LI TY ” ROBERT E. HORVAT AND ALAN M. VOELKER An instrument (Some Ideas) was developed to assess I). the “environmental respons- ibility” of fifth and eighth grade students, and 2) their perceptions of environmental problems and the people who solve these problems. Scores from the validated instrument served as the dependent variable in several ANOVAs with independent variables including grade, community, socioeconomic status (SES), IQ, and sex (nested within grade). This report summarizes instrument development procedures and field test results. “Environmental Orientations” Some Ideas is one of three valid and reliable instruments developed to assess upper elementary school students’ environmental orientations (EOs). The battery is known as the Environmental Orientations Inventory (see Voelker and Horvat, 1974). EOs are defined as the responses people make to various aspects of their environment-a combi- nation of affective and cognitive influences-reported on paper-and-pencil instruments employing attitude and opinion formats. The utility of the “environmental orientations” concept for environmental education (EE) research is discussed in Voelker and Horvat (in preparation). Collectively, the three instruments attempt to produce a