Avaliação da perecepção ambiental quanto ao desflorestamento: construção e validação de um modelo

Abstract

Abstract: The objective of this study was to build and validate an attitude scale to assess the perception of future administrators about deforestation in the Legal Amazon and its relationship with relevant aspects. The interest in this subject is justified by the recent high annual rates of deforestation, which can be considered an alarm for society to realize that its awareness and participation are vital to stop the process of destruction before it threatens future generations. To reach our objective, four stages were adopted in accordance with the suggestions of researchers: 1. A review of the specialized literature was carried out and from this, dimensions that are considered important were chosen. Assertives were created from the dimensions (previous Likert attitude scale); 2. The set of assertions was submitted to the evaluation of five specialists, for a theoretical validation of the scale. Several changes have been implemented; 3. The new scale was submitted to a group of ten respondents, in order to assess the time needed to answer and the difficulties in understanding the assertions (semantic validation). Finally, a scale was reached with 23 assertions divided into four groups, which covered the dimensions identified as the objectives of the scale. 4. As a last step, the scale was applied to a group of 263 undergraduate students in the first and fourth (last) years of Business Administration courses in the State of Pará, Brazil, chosen in a non-probabilistic way. To validate the sample, statistical tests were carried out which indicated that the built model is suitable for the purpose it is proposed. Respondents, in general, showed a very good perception of deforestation in the Legal Amazon. Our study also showed the possibility of using the same scale for different situations dealing with environmental perceptions.