Slovakian Pupils' Knowledge of, and Attitudes toward, Birds

As the world's biodiversity is being destroyed, costs for nature protection activities increase. One proposed way to increase people's pro-environmental attitudes is to increase their knowledge base. It has been suggested that knowledge and attitudes are related, but no consensus in this field yet exists. Thus, the investigation of the relationship between attitudes and knowledge has valuable implications for nature protection programs. In this paper, we investigated relationships between Slovakian grammar school pupils' attitudes to, and knowledge of, birds (n = 402 participants aged 10-19 years). We found that factual knowledge about birds was positively related to pupils' attitudes toward birds. Interestingly, younger pupils had better knowledge of birds than older pupils. Regarding attitudes, higher scores were registered for the Concern for Birds and Avoidance of Birds dimensions than the Interest in Birds dimension. Females showed more positive attitudes in the Avoidance of Birds dimension compared with males, and bird owners scored higher in the Interest in Birds dimension and lower in the Concern for Birds dimension compared with non-bird owners. Implications for nature protection programs are discussed.