The potential threat that climate change poses to mankind and the systems we rely on necessitates further research so that informed steps towards mitigating it can be instituted. There is the need to understand the attitudes and reduction practices of people in relation to climate change and in what ways knowledge of the issue may inform these attitudes and reduction practices. This becomes especially important when one considers that ―Previous studies had focused on environmental awareness instead of trying, to change people‘s attitudes and values about it‖ (Budak et al., 2005, p: 1224). For a process of climate change mitigation to occur, across all levels, research undertaken must have an end goal of not only being informative but proactive in offering possible solutions to changing perceptions and ultimately behaviour towards the environment.
To achieved the above, research must be undertaken at the local level, ―understanding the dynamic interaction between nature and society requires case studies situated in particular places and cultures‖ (Berke and Jolly, 2005, p: 18). This is because specific areas will suffer from different climatic variations and specific cultures hold individual beliefs which ultimately inform attitudes and reduction practices, therefore, addressing the different levels of knowledge and types of attitudes and reduction practices people have towards climate change must initially be dealt with at the local level where such specific variations can be accounted for. Once research has been undertaken at the local level it can later inform decisions and policy at the regional, continental and global levels on how to incorporate such specific variations within the greater context of the global threat.
Lagos State as a commercial centre in Africa is one of the world‘s biggest receivers of climate change impact. ―According to the Climate Change Summit held in Johannesburg - June 2008 -Africa has been rated as the world‘s 13th biggest emitter
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of greenhouse gases by the IPCC‖ (Greenprint, 2009, p: 1). In view of this, it is of the utmost importance that Africa‘s educational institutions not only provide the facilities to promote behavioural changes within their students and staff but also commit themselves to reducing their impact on the environment, in particular, their contributions to climate change.
Further―As declared in Agenda 21, schools are directly challenged to increase their responsibility in developing environmentally literate citizens. In particular universities were asked to play prominent roles in preparing citizens to analyse and resolve environmental issues. Universities are obliged to help students‘ to be part of society, while they are also assumed to be leaders in creating a culture of environmental stewardship in our society‖ (Budak et al., 2005, p: 1224).Therefore, the purpose of This research is to address the knowledge, attitudes and reduction practices (KAP) of students‘ and staff in Lagos State towards global climate change. This is an important task because Lagos state, the students‘ and staff it accommodates have significant impact on the environment.
This includes their high consumption levels of water, paper and electricity as well as their high output levels of waste and greenhouse gases. Ultimately their actions play a role in contributing to climate change. However, it becomes prudent to understand what levels of knowledge and what types of attitudes and reduction practices students and staff ascribe to, in order to guage their impact on global climate change.
In particular it is the aim of this study to provide some basic framework for advocating change with regards to KAP of students towards climate change in Lagos State. Therefore through gathering information about the levels of knowledge and the types of attitudes and reduction practices that Lagos State populace ascribe to, in particular students‘, This study will try to account for these findings and offer solutions for amending undesirable situations, as well as provide a framework for future research on climate change.
There has been much debate over whether or not knowledge of a subject automatically results in better reduction practices. Most sociologists argue thatthis is
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too simplistic a relationship to generalise when a person‘s attitude and reduction practices are an outcome of a huge range of factors such as culture and experience (Steel, 1995).Moreover, for this study it can be stated that a connection was found between a person‘s level of knowledge on climate change and his/her proactive behaviour. This is very similar to Bandura‘s efficacy construct. ‗This self-efficacy construct is within the framework of Bandura‘s Social constructivism theory of self-regulation (1991, but dates back to 1977 and his work on self-efficacy. Self-regulation in the Social constructivism theory has two elements: self-monitoring and self judgement. Self-monitoring provides the contextual information (or ‗reference value‘) while self judgement sets the target level (as ‗input value‘ or ‗standard‘).
Standards thus have psychological meaning in this version of a self-regulating system;
they are self-set by individuals. Bandura‘s theory (1977, in Jackson, 2005) ,builds on his work in Social Learning, in which behaviour is learnt through observing and
‗modelling‘ the behaviour of others. Unlike Control theory, which is concerned with the ongoing flow of behaviour, Social constructivism theory is explicitly about behaviour change: Bandura states that altering our standards and goal setting is essential for ‗self-directed change‖ (Bandura 1991).
Bandura‘s theory also includes a reward element as the purpose for the goal-setting process; these tend not to be tangible rewards, but loose psychological ones based on a sense of achievement. In his/her work on self-efficacy, Bandura comments that a sense of personal mastery can be acquired through achieving a succession of small tasks, not just a few big, ones (Bandura 1977). Self-efficacy is given as the key example of the self- regulating system in action. The effort to be expended on behaviour is based on an assessment of the gap between current and desired level.
Goal setting is the key means of driving action: increasing the standard to be achieved continually motivates action. Self-efficacy comes from achieving the standards, but is also recursive as efficacy is derived from experiences of achievement. Further studies based on this theory found a trend of linear progression whereby ―educating people about environmental issues would automatically result in more pro-environmental behaviour‖ (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002, p: 241). It can be said that inhabitants of Lagos State are more knowledgeable individuals generally and more willing to get involved in climate change mitigation. This has important implications for how the
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people can address the KAP of students‘; when impacting their knowledge which will most likely influence their attitudes and reduction practices.
2.3.2 Mentoring Instructional Strategy and Students’ knowledge of Climate