Awareness, Attitudes and Knowledge on Green Technology among the Students Engaged in Higher Education in the National Institute of Business Management in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Environment should be protected for the survival and sustainable living. Novel technology is also an essential factor for the development of the society. For the society to reach the sustainable development it is crucial to grasp new technologies while maintaining proper environmental protection activities. Green technology is not a specified technology, but an eco-friendly concept which focus on mitigating the adverse human impact on the environment. Literature reviews that high implementation cost, lack of information and awareness, and lack of human resources and skills are identified as the barriers to implement green technology. Students at the present will be the future leaders in the society who will get benefited from the valuable resources in the environment. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore the awareness and attitudes towards green technology among the students engaged in higher education in the National Institute of Business Management and also to measure their level of knowledge on implementing green technology. The population under this study were the students engaged in business management programmes in the National Institute of Business Management, of whom 300 students were included randomly in the research sample. As the base of selection of the sample, five regional centers of the National Institute of Business Management, namely; Colombo, Kurunegala, Kandy, Galle and Matara were selected using purposive sampling method while students within each center were selected using simple random sampling method. Primary data were collected through a structured questionnaire designed to measure the awareness, attitudes and practical knowledge on green technology. Preliminary survey was carried out prior to the study with a sample of 20 students to test the validity of the questionnaire. Awareness on green technology was summarised descriptively while the attitudes and practical knowledge on green technology were measured through two composite indices developed by Principal Component Analysis. Results mainly highlighted that 88% of total respondents were aware on green technology while the attitude index had a mean value of 0.82 which denotes the students have an overall positive attitude towards green technology. The knowledge index had a mean value of 0.39 which denotes the overall knowledge of students in practically implementing the green concept is poor. These results create a need of methods to uplift the knowledge of students on the theoretical and practical aspects in implementing green technology. As the students had positive attitudes, it can be recommended to incorporate green technology as a module in the curriculum of business management programmes in the National Institute of Business Management.
Keywords: Attitudes, Awareness, Knowledge, Green technology