The Effect of Participation in Outdoor Sport Activities on Environmental Knowledge and Behavior

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of participation in the outdoor sport activities on environmental knowledge and behavior. The statistical population consisted of those who had come to the suburbs to participate in the outdoor activities such as hiking, trekking, biking in the nature, etc. and 241 available subjects were selected randomly as the sample. The environmental behavior questionnaire by Zafeiroudi & Hatzigeorgiadis (2012) and environmental knowledge questionnaire by Cottrell (2003) were used to collect the data. The structural equation modeling and SmartPLS.2 software were used to analyze the research data. The results showed that the outdoor sport activities affected the social environmental behavior but these activities did not affect the personal environmental behavior and environmental knowledge. Also, the environmental knowledge affected the social and personal environmental behaviors. In general, this study showed that the participation in the outdoor sport activities helps people to create a more direct contact with the environment