The Influence of Values and the Social Environment on the Environmental Attitudes of Students: The Case of Lithuania

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Both abstract and introduction should be improved in that they lack the necessary information regarding the research objective and the implications of the results. In addition to this, I suggest authors to avoid direct causality explanations as in “how values and social environmental factors shape the pro-environmental attitudes of students” (see abstract) and prefer more moderate expressions hinting at the existence of a relationships between personal values and pro-environmental attitudes to escape possible endogeneity concerns. I suggest to clarify from the very beginning that only univariate analyses were here performed  and no causality is therefore investigated.    

In the hypothesis section authors put into a relationship personal values and environmental attitudes. Despite this is an interestig approach it will be worthy to dig deeper and investigate to what extent such attitudes are translated into pro-environmental behaviors. The theory of planned behavior (see suggested references below) offers a view on how attitudes, social norms and perceived behavioral control are translated into pro-environmental behaviors. I understand authors cannot include such a new theory at this stage of their research; though, adding any possible and available information on the pro-environmental behavior in their results would be strongly appreciated.

In paragraph 3.2. “Empirical Study Measurements” authors mention linear regressions as the methodology they employ. Do authors refer to univariate or multivariate regressions? The correlations illustrated in the results section suggest that univariate regressions were run…it would be interesting and worthy to make use of multivariate regressions in order to check for the influence of individuals’ heterogeneity (socio-demo information for example) on the dependent variable. A further methodological enhancement would be the implementation of a Structural Equation Modelling (as usually applied to Theory of Planned Behavior studies) to investigate the effect of latent variables on pro-environmental behaviors.

No need to spend words on how a linear regressions work, as they are more than well-known in the academic practice.

At the beginning of section 5 the relevance of the research in terms of objective, results and practical implications is briefly discussed. I strongly suggest authors to expand and deepen such a discussion both at the beginning (introduction) and bottom (conclusions) of the paper.

Suggested references:

Ajzen, I.; Madden, T.J. (1986). Prediction of goal-directed behavior: Attitudes, intentions, and perceived behavioral control. Journal of Experimental Sociology and Psychology, 22, 453–474. 

De Leeuw, A.; Valois, P.; Ajzen, I.; Schmidt, P. (2015). Using the theory of planned behavior to identify key beliefs underlying pro-environmental behavior in high-school students: Implications for educational interventions. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 42, 128–138.

Lucarelli C., Mazzoli, C., Severini, S. (2020), Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior to Examine Pro-Environmental Behavior: The Moderating Effect of COVID-19 Beliefs. Sustainability 12(24), pp. 1-17.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, first of all, on behalf of myself and the co-authors, I would like to thank you for your deep insights and comments. Our response to your observations: we have taken note of your correct observation regarding the direct explanations for causation that were. You are right, because since this is our initial analysis, during which we did not seek to analyze causality in this article, our formulas were also incorrect. This observation of yours will be an incentive for us to look carefully at such moments in the future article. Our research has raised questions for ourselves about how the aspects we analyze contribute to an environmentally friendly ego. Therefore, your suggestion to make results based on the Theory of Planned Behavior in this aspect will be implemented for us by continuing the analysis of the data and at the same time looking for causality. The observation in point 3.2 is correct, we used one-dimensional regression in this article, p Your proposed multidimensional regression together with the modeling of structural equations is intended to be used for the next stage and article, when we will deepen the causality with your proposed theory of planned behavior. We have tried to eliminate what you think is clear in the academic community.

We sincerely thank you again for your comments to help us improve. 

Reviewer 2 Report

The titles of articles or books of scientific sources in Lithuanian should be supplemented by an English translation. Although the whole study was conducted in accordance with the research methodology, it is debatable why it was these personal values that were chosen for the study. Even the crobach alpha coefficient indicates that this is not a very precisely chosen value for the study.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, first of all, on behalf of myself and the co-authors, I would like to thank you for your deep insights and comments. Our response to your observations: We have singled out these values, which we believe are fundamental. Your observation about the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient is correct, but the scientific literature indicates that a reliability of 0.7 is expressed. Of course, realizing that this is the limit, we will also take into account a remark worthy of your discussion. We have provided a list of references according to the requirements, but we will draw your attention to this in the future. 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

no comments on the revised version