Knowledge, Perceptions, and Attitudes as Determinants of Youths’ Intentions to Use Bioenergy—A Cross-National Perspective

WOS: 000319106300002
Development of modern bioenergy sector is an important step toward meeting societal demand for reducing CO2 emissions and supplying eco-friendly energy. Young students are the future decision-makers and they will play an important role toward transforming the present fossil fuel driven society into a renewable energy based society. The study aimed to explain young students' intentions to use bioenergy by considering their knowledge perceptions, and attitudes related to bioenergy in Finland, Taiwan, Turkey, and Slovakia. Data for this study came from a previous survey in these countries among 15-year-old 1903 school students. This study with the help of Principal Component Analysis revealed the dimensions of the students' perceptions of and attitudes related to bioenergy. One of the dimensions pro-environmental intention was used as the dependent variable in the Multiple Regression Analyses. Results indicated that students' intentions to use bioenergy were mostly guided by their perceptions of the socio-environmental aspects related to bioenergy. Individual level decision-making such as communicating and learning more about bioenergy was also important; however, with a low impact value. Results also suggested that the criticalenvironmental dimension had only minor influence on the students' intentions to use bioenergy. Students' level of bioenergy-knowledge especially those with a relatively higher level appeared to have a strong impact on their intentions to use bioenergy. Young students should be facilitated to become aware of bioenergy in order to influence their intentions to use it in the future.
OKKA-saatio Foundation (Helsinki, Finland)
The Authors are thankful to the two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions, which helped to improve the manuscript. In addition, the authors acknowledge all the survey respondents, the schools and the municipal authorities in each country for their cooperation. Finally, yet importantly, the authors acknowledge the generous funding support by the OKKA-saatio Foundation (Helsinki, Finland).