There is a considerable body of literature on research on environmental knowledge, attitude and action. A lot of
research has occurred on the primary and secondary school populations and the general population. However, much
less emphasis has been placed on studies that concern post-compulsory education students in the range from 16 to
18 years old. The purpose of this review was to give an overview of environmental knowledge, attitude and action
research with a particular emphasis on youth. The findings of a majority of studies reported a positive attitude
towards the environment and a variety of levels of environmental knowledge. Behavior was not extensively studied.
A number of studies found that females had a more positive attitude towards the environment than males. The
majority of studies indicate that the main sources of environmental information for youth are television, books,
newspapers, schools and friends. The main environmental problems mentioned by students were air pollution,
water pollution, the loss of biological diversity and “population increase in the big cities” and hazardous waste.
Most studies used quantitative techniques to gather data. The most commonly used instrument was a questionnaire
with multiple choice questions and a Likert type scale particularly to measure attitudes. Considering the mainly
quantitative nature of these studies, more appropriate sampling strategies, contextualized research instruments and
statistical analysis should have been carried out to ensure more robust statistical findings.peer-reviewe
