Barriers to a Low Carbon Society in an Academic Community: A Quasi-experimental Study at Rajamangla University of Technology, Thailand

Abstract

As an exceedingly knowledgeable community that lacks commitment and support, the leaders of the university have attempted to promote a green society by various means, i.e. multimedia infographics and workshops. A study was conducted of the barriers to implementing a low carbon society among the students as well as the academic and administrative staff at Rajamangala University of Technology Rattanakosin, Salaya Thailand. This was done with a quasi-experimental study to understand the potential barriers implementing a low carbon society in an academic setting. A quasi-experiment was done due to resource constraints. The information required by this study was gained through a structured questionnaire. Some design variables were tested in the sample of 200 of the 400 eligible participants. No randomization was done as the attributes of the participants were similar. We used a t-test and ANOVA analysis to test our hypothesis. A Weighted Average Index (WAI) was employed to evaluate the barriers that likely affect the implementation of a low carbon society. It was found that a majority of the participants were women, accounting for 56.50% of the population while males were 43.50%. Members of the academic community exhibited no significant differences in their contributions to the university’s inability to implement a low carbon society with a level of significance of 0.05. The participants perceived that an effective low carbon society would be accomplished if it was practiced from childhood as part of their learning process. In this way, it would become a mainstream practice as part of a school curriculum with the goal of instilling good citizenship in the students. Strong support from the university’s top management will make low carbon society practices habitual in our academic community.