Aware Today, Sustainable Tomorrow: Students’ Environmental Awareness at Mindanao State University Sulu Senior High School

Abstract

Environmental awareness plays a pivotal role in promoting sustainable behavior among students. And with that, this study was conducted to determine the level of environmental awareness among students of Mindanao State University–Sulu Senior High School in terms of cognitive, affective, conative, and active dimensions, identify the highest and lowest dimensions, examine differences when grouped according to gender and strand, and determine the relationships among these dimensions. The respondents consisted of 228 senior high school students from GAS and STEM strands of MSU–Sulu Senior High School. Using a descriptive-correlational and comparative design, data were collected through a validated questionnaire. Findings revealed that students demonstrated an overall “high” level of environmental awareness. The conative dimension attained the highest mean, while the active dimension had the lowest mean, indicating a gap between willingness to act and their actual behavior. Furthermore, no significant differences were found in cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions in terms of strand, while a significant difference was observed in the active dimension. In terms of gender, no significant differences were found in conative, and active dimensions, while the affective and cognitive dimension showed a significant difference. In addition, all four dimensions showed a significant relationship towards each other. It was highly recommended that students should actively engage in an environmental program, parents should reinforce environmental practices at home, teachers should integrate environmental education, communities should conduct awareness campaigns, and future researchers should employ a mixed-method approaches.