Roles of Environmental Knowledge in Promoting Agricultural Students’ Pro-Environmental Behaviors

Environmental crises are among the most important problems and concerns in the 21st century. Many researchers and experts believe that by encouraging the pro-environmental behavior, these problems can be reduced and it requires increasing the human-environmental knowledge. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the effects of environmental knowledge on students’ pro-environmental behavior. This research is a descriptive and correlational study. The statistical population consisted of all agricultural students studying at the University of Zanjan (N= 1,127). The sample size was calculated using Krejcie and Morgan’s sampling table (n= 290), and the subjects were surveyed using a proportional stratified random sampling method.  In the statistical process of data analysis, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with AMOS ver. 24.0 software was used to test the research hypotheses. The results indicated that students’ systematic knowledge had a positive and significant effect on students’ pro-environmental behavior. Also, the findings indicated that action-related and effective knowledge had no significant effect on students’ environmental behavior. Therefore, the systematic knowledge is, directly and indirectly, a good determinant for the environmental behaviors that should be taken into consideration to improve the students’ environmental behaviors.