Brennan M, C A (2013) Development of a measure to assess attitudes towards sustainable development in the built environment: A pilot. In: Smith, S D and Ahiaga-Dagbui, D D (eds.) Proceedings of 29th Annual ARCOM Conference, 2-4 September 2013, Reading, UK.
Abstract
The recognition of the importance of the construction industry for the three dimensions of sustainable development, the environmental, economic and social has gained widespread momentum in recent years. Yet despite policy drives and regulations from government as well as efforts from higher education institutions, progress towards implementation of sustainable practices within industry remains slow. The literature evidences that attitudes towards sustainable development are a major barrier to implementation of such practices. At present no measure exists to quantify attitudes towards all three dimensions of sustainability within a construction context. This paper describes the steps taken to develop such a measure, the Sustainable Development Attitudes Measure (SDAM). Once developed, in order to test the questionnaire and validate for dissemination in industry the SDAM was piloted amongst built environment students (n=230). Results indicated that the measure was both valid and reliable (_=.87). The resulting measurement tool will allow a broad range of practitioners working across the construction industry and higher education to assess which aspects of sustainable development are favoured over others and target less favourable aspects through increasing awareness, training and curriculum design. Validation processes are described along with directions for future work in relation to further validation of the measure and its usage.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | attitude; psychology; psychometrics; scale development; sustainable development |
| Index terms: | higher education, sustainable development, scale development, sustainable practice, higher education institution, construction industry, implementation, dimension, psychology, regulation, built environment, practitioner, questionnaire, validation, evidence, dissemination |
| Subjects: | data collection methods, evaluation and assessment methods, practitioner, health monitoring assessment and metrics, contractual arrangements, knowledge translation, professional development, health safety and environment, measurement and scaling, educational institutions, sustainable practices, political science, behavioral psychology, industry analysis, infrastructure and transport systems |
| Topics: | Health and Safety, Research Practice, Information Management, Roles and Professions, Procurement, Sustainability, Governance, Urban Studies, Education |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here