Effect of Gender on Environmental Awareness of Post-graduate Students

Aims: It was aimed in the present study to explore the effect of gender on environmental awareness of the post-graduate students. When education diversity was controlled to be science and social-science the environmental awareness was expected to be influenced by the gender of individuals.
Study Design: In order to test the above objective the present study used comparative analyses in respect of the gender taking the subjects from science and social-science discipline represented from different areas.
Place and Duration of Study: Place of the study was the post-graduate students selected from Karnatak and Bangalore Universities of Karnataka State, duration of the study was between February 2011 to July 2012.
Methodology: The students of science discipline pursuing their 3rd semester of course in Botany, Chemistry, Geography, Geology, Applied Genetics, Physics and Zoology in Karnatak and Bangalore Universities were included in the study. However, in the Bangalore University the environmental science students were added to the science discipline as the course is offered in the university. The students included for the social-science discipline were from 3rd semester courses of Economics, History, Political Science, Social Work and Sociology. On the subjects the environmental awareness test developed by Jha (1998) was administered in group and the responses were obtained by the subjects.
Sample: The included total subjects for the study were 605 post-graduate students comprising from science and social-science discipline. The age range of the students was between 22 to 24 years. For the obtained data after calculating mean and SD for the groups, ‘t’ analyses was carried out to find significant difference between the groups.
Results: Statistical results using the ‘t’ test revealed no significant difference between the male and the female students of both science and social-science students of Karnatak University (Dharwad Science Male mean 50.54 (SD 11.15)/Female mean 51.41 (SD 08.15), ‘t’ 0.54, p>0.05. Dharwad Social-Science Male mean 51.02 (SD 09.07)/Female mean 51.68 (SD 07.34),‘t’ 0.51, p>0.05). The study also did not find significant difference between the male and the female science students of Bangalore university. However, there was difference between the social-science students in relation to their gender, the awareness results favouring the females (Bangalore Science Male mean 49.75 (SD 11.73)/Female mean 53.97, (SD 07.37), ‘t’ 2.26, p<0.05. Bangalore Social-Science Male mean 51.41(SD 07.83)/Female mean 51.98 (SD 07.15), ‘t’ 0.51, p>0.05).
Conclusion: It was evidenced in the present study that gender has no significant effect on environmental awareness of the post-graduate students. Out of the four comparative analyses, in three the results are in accordance with the hypothesis and in one comparative analysis it was found that the females have higher environmental awareness. This implies that gender significance study on effect of environmental awareness needs further careful verification with control of other variables.