Built environment student attitudes toward the environment

Although infrastructure can be categorized as a basic necessity, research has shown that the construction industry has had major impacts on the environment. Incentives and environmental agendas have been put in place, yet these initiatives have been limited in their level of effectiveness. It may be necessary to assess the educational aspect of built environment to implement change. Making students aware of environmental problems caused by traditional building strategies and bringing their attention towards appropriate ways of counteracting such effects would be the starting point for sustainability education to promote positive environmental attitudes. By higher education offering this to students throughout their degree prepares them for the industry with forward thinking ideas on how to incorporate sustainable practices in industry upon degree attainment. Psychological assessment was used as a way to explore whether the type of psychological profiles built environment students had showed a relationship with their environmental knowledge. The results of this pilot study showed that weak negative correlations between neuroticism, extraversion and ecological world view were found. Suggestions are made as how to make these results relevant in an educational setting while also outlining future directions of the research.