Development of an Indigenous Climate Change Knowledge Measure in Pakistan

Abstract

Climate change is a threat to humanity and it has consequences for the physical and mental health and individuals. The knowledge of individuals about climate change determine their response to climate change. Current study aimed to develop an indigenous climate change knowledge measure in Pakistan. Development of scale process comprised of following steps: Generation of item pool, Finalization of item pool, tryout, and finalization of factor structure of the scale through exploratory factory analyses. Sample consisted of 400 young adults to finalize the scale structure and items. All ethical considerations were followed. The analyses were done through SPSS and only those items were retained in the scale who have factor loading of above .35. Two subscales were finalized on the basis of scree plot and eigenvalue more than 1. The finalized scale has two sub dimensions including nature factor and human factor. Current study provided an indigenous measure and researchers can use this self-reported to know the knowledge of individuals about climate change.