QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN

The online questionnaire used in this study consists of four parts (see Appendix A); 1) Environmental beliefs and actions, 2) Energy saving behaviours, 3) Efficacy and outcome expectancy, and 4) Sociodemographic variables:

Environmental beliefs and actions

This section began by asking respondents their beliefs about whether climate change is happening, using a 5-point Likert scale, with the question wording adapted from Spence et al. (2011). This was then followed by an open-ended question asking respondents why they had selected their answer. This was the only qualitative question used in the online survey. It aimed to gain unprompted information on the reasons that people provided for their position on the ontological reality of climate change2

. These questions were used first in this section in order to avoid biasing responses. More specifically, asking questions about perceptions of anthropogenic climate change and general pro-environmental beliefs prior

2

A similar study was published by Capstick and Pidgeon (2014). However this was not available when my study was designed. Similar to my study, this study used an online survey with a UK representative sample of 500 participants. This study was able to show that personal experiences, such as weather, may help anchor the abstract nature of climate change. By using a battery of quantitative questions this study found that ‘non-sceptics’ are as inclined to attribute a meaning to cold weather events as are ‘sceptics’. My findings partially align with these findings, as using an inductive/qualitative approach for justifications of belief, I found both believers and deniers to point to weather as evidence for (anthropogenic) climate change, with believers more likely to point to weather. Unfortunately, as I used an open ended question, not all participants pointed to changing weather - or cold winters (as asked by Capstick and Pidgeon (2014) - and as such I was not able to also demonstrate that weather is used by believers and non-believers alike. However in line with the above study, my findings show that, when unprompted, believers in particular tend to point to changing weather as a justification for climate change. Furthermore, participants in my sample often pointed to ideas not included in Capstick and Pidgeon’s study, such as the changeability of weather (rather than extreme events).

to asking about climate change beliefs and a justification for these could prompt responses that are socially desirable and in line with popular views about climate change.

Perceptions of anthropogenic climate change were then examined with the use of a 10- point slider with options ranging from ‘all human caused’ to ‘all non-human’. Perceptions of the extent to which one’s lifestyle contributes to climate change were examined followed by the examination of whether action is taken out of concern for climate change, thus exploring what Whitmarsh (2009) and Stern (2000) have called ‘intent-oriented behaviour’. Perceptions of current lifestyle and the environment were then explored (DEFRA, 2009), followed by questions probing the extent to which respondents perceived climate change to be a big problem for Humanity and Planet Earth. Respondents were then asked to rate how often concern about climate change influences their decisions (question adapted from Spence et al., 2011), how often they talk to friends and family about climate change (question adapted from DEFRA, 2009) and whether they worry about climate change.

The next set of questions was aimed at understanding perceptions of confidence, first in relation to scientists’ confidence regarding climate predictions, second in relation to levels of confidence expected by individuals of science that is used as the basis for policy- making, and third in relation to scientists’ confidence regarding the link between carbon emissions and climate change. These questions used predefined levels of confidence taken from guidance on how to describe levels of scientific confidence in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Le Treut et al., 2007), examined using five categories of confidence.

Energy saving behaviours

The adoption of energy saving behaviours was examined in this section. The behaviours examined were from the Gardner and Stern (2008) short list of behaviours. The Gardner and Stern (2008) short list was developed in the US, and as such, for the purposes of this study, these behaviours were adapted for the UK public. Examples include adapting: i) the

terminology by changing ‘caulk/weather-strip home’ to ‘draught proof your home’, ii) terms and spelling by changing ‘buy low-rolling resistance tires’ to ‘buy tyres that lessen

resistance’, iii) units of temperature by changing ‘turn down thermostat from 72o

F to 68oF during the day and to 65oF during the night’ to ‘turn down thermostat from 22oC to 20oC during the day and to 18oC at night (72oF-68oF, 65oF)’, iv) energy ratings by changing ‘install a more efficient unit (replace a 19-21.4 cubic feet top-freezer unit bought between

1993 and 2000 with a new Energy Star unit)’ with ‘an A+ Rated Fridge Freezer, in place of a lower rated one bought between 1993 and 2000’.

The behaviours were further classified as follows: i) general behaviours, which were directed at all participants and involved mainly curtailment behaviours resulting in direct cutting down on energy use (e.g. turning thermostat down), ii) home behaviours, which were directed to home owners and involve only efficiency behaviours; The aforementioned are behaviours which can indirectly can result in the reduction of energy use (e.g. installing insulation), and iii) car behaviours which were directed at car owners and include both efficiency and curtailment behaviours. The reason for the distinction into these three types of behaviours is that regarding domestic energy conservation, curtailment behaviours may be the only option for people renting their homes, as costly efficiency behaviours may only be an option for home owners (Gardner and Stern, 2008). Similarly, car behaviours can only be directed towards car owners.

Adoption of efficiency behaviours was examined in a yes or no format (with the exception of home behaviours examined with ‘I have done this/ I have bought property with/ I have not done this’) format. Adoption of curtailment behaviours was examined with a 5-point Likert scale (always, often, sometimes, rarely, never). Following from the main motivations and barriers found in past research (Lorenzoni et al., 2007, Whitmarsh, 2009a), the motivations and barriers to behaviour adoption were subsequently examined through the use of 9 statements in a drop down menu:

Motivations - financial reasons, ease, for the environment, convenience, moral obligation, health reasons, habit, comfort, know it matters.

Barriers - financial reasons, difficulty, for the environment, inconvenience, moral obligation, health reasons, habit, comfort, don’t know if it matters.

Respondents were asked to select their main and secondary motivations for each of the behaviours carried out, with the main and secondary barriers selected in the case where the behaviour was not carried out. Perceived financial savings from each of the behaviours was then examined, regardless of whether it was carried out or not, with the following options: £0, £1-£5, £5-£10, £10-£20, £20-£40, £40-£80, £80-£160, £160-£320, £320-£640. These responses were then used as part of the analysis in Chapters 5 and 6, where they were compared against the actual potential money saved by carrying out each of the behaviours

examined. Data from government and commercial sources was used for these calculations (see Appendix H).

The ‘skip logic’ offered by LimeSurvey was applied to ensure respondents answered the questions that were relevant to them (i.e. home energy saving behaviours were answered only by home owners, and car energy saving behaviours were answered only by car owners). Those who did not own a car or a home only answered questions on general behaviours (mostly curtailment behaviours).

Efficacy and outcome expectancy

This section includes measures of self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, personal outcome expectancy, collective efficacy and collective outcome expectancy, for each of the behaviours, using items from other surveys (e.g. Lubell, 2002, Bandura, 2006), and as developed through the literature review which forms the published Chapter 4 (Koletsou and Mancy, 2011).

Sociodemographic measures

These included measures of gender, age, highest qualification, household income, number of people at home, home and car ownership. As explained in more detail in section 2.3.2, the rationale for including these measures was due to evidence relating these to energy use and savings (e.g. Sardianou, 2007).

Questions which were not included in the final analysis

Within the scope of the PhD, the decision was taken to not include some questions in the analysis. These involved: days of travel to work/study, postcode details, usual transport mode to place of work/study, miles driven, car engine size, flights within and outside UK (from the sociodemographic measures section). In addition there was also a social dilemma question on how likely people would be to reduce carbon emissions in 4 different scenarios, followed by 10 questions examining biospheric, egoistic and altruistic concerns (taken from the environmental beliefs section), perceptions of percentage CO2 reduction per year per behaviour (from the behaviours section). The answers to these questions generated more data which, ultimately, was beyond the scope of this project.

2.3.1 The refinement step

Once the questions had been chosen and the format of the questionnaire had been decided, a meeting was carried out with science education colleagues from the School of Education involving my supervisor, two PhD students and one Masters student. The aim of this meeting was to ensure that the questionnaire was suitable and appropriate for providing the responses required, and to address any problems of comprehensibility. Based on feedback from these colleagues, some revisions were carried out on the wording of questions and on the answer options provided for some questions. Following these changes, the questionnaire was then transferred to the online host (LimeSurvey). One other Master’s student and family member were then asked to complete the online survey, as if they were random members of the public in order to ensure the final format was ready for the study participants to complete. The questionnaire took approximately 30 minutes to complete, both by the two people in the final trial, and the actual 501 participants.

2.3.2 Online questionnaire host (LimeSurvey)

Due to the complexity of the questionnaire designed for this study, an online survey provider that allowed a certain degree of flexibility in questionnaire design was required. LimeSurvey (www.limesurvey.org/) was chosen for the following reasons:

a) It is a free open source online survey application.

b) It offers flexible question formats, where response options could range from open ended, to Likert, to slider format.

c) It offers ‘skip logic’, which involves displaying certain questions depending on answers provided to previous questions (Sjöström et al., 2013). This was particularly important for the tailoring of questions (i.e. home efficiency questions appearing to those who stated that they are home owners).

d) It allows for respondents to remain anonymous.

e) It allows for quotas to be set. This was of key importance as it allowed for the achievement of data collected from a nationally representative sample (see section 2.3.2). f) It has an export function, allowing the collected data to be transferred directly into SPSS, thus ensuring reliability.

2.3.3 Ethical approval of the questionnaire

Prior to data collection, ethical approval was requested from the Ethics Committee for Non Clinical Research Involving Human Subjects of the School of Education at the University of Glasgow. The paper format of the online questionnaire was presented, along with the desire to use data archiving for the data collected. This was granted on the 5th of March 2012 with the statement ‘this is a low risk application with little ethical concern’ thus allowing the research to be carried out.