Enhancing university students' global citizenship, public mindedness, and moral quotient for promoting sense of environmental responsibility and pro-environmental behaviours

Many universities have attempted to courage their students to engage in sustainable, green behaviours. However, the mere role of environmental knowledge cannot contribute to students' engagement in pro-environmental behaviours. This study examined another facet of factors that promote behavioural change by investigating how students' global citizenship, public mindedness, and moral quotient affect their sense of responsibility to act environmentally and engage in pro-environmental behaviours. The questionnaire surveys with 423 students of a university in Thailand were carried out from March to April 2017. Path analysis was performed to test the effect of global citizenship, public mindedness, and moral quotient on sense of responsibility and the effect of sense of responsibility on pro-environmental behaviours. The result showed that global citizenship, public mindedness, and moral quotient had a significant effect on students' pro-environmental behaviours by enhancing sense of responsibility. Global citizenship had the strongest affect, followed by public mindedness and moral quotient. Therefore, it could be suggested that rather than solely focusing on instilling environmental knowledge, universities should focus on enhancing students' global citizenship, public mindedness, and moral quotient.