Predicting the Environmental Behavior of Athlete Students Through Environmental Knowledge and Attitudes

The purpose of the study was predicting the environmental behavior of athlete students through environmental knowledge and attitudes. The research method was descriptive including correlation analyses and conducted in the field making it an applied research. The statistical population of the research comprised 6000 students participating in 13th Sport-Cultural Olympiad of University Students of whom using  Krejcie and Morgan Table and stratified random sampling 361 persons were selected as the research sample. The research tools were environmental knowledge questionnaire of Salehi and Aghamohamadi (1387) and Salehi and Pazokinejad (1392), Dunlap and Van Liere’s environmental attitude questionnaire (1978), and Salehi and Aghamohamadi’s environmental behavior questionnaire (1387). The validity of questionnaires was approved in different internal researches. The reliability of questionnaires was investigated through Cronbach's alpha and the reliability coefficients for the environmental knowledge questionnaire, attitude, and behavior were respectively calculated at 0.89, 0.76, and 0.78. For data analysis, the descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The results showed that the level of environmental attitudes and behavior of athlete student was a little more than average. However, the level of athlete students’ environmental knowledge was moderate. The results showed no significant relationship between knowledge and environmental attitudes. On the other hand, there was a significant relationship between environmental knowledge and behavior and environmental attitude and behavior. In this connection, the environmental knowledge and attitudes were significant predicators of environmental behaviors of athlete students.