The knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) model has been widely applied in medical, public health, and sustainability research, yet most studies on higher education students have examined sustainability from a general SDGs perspective, potentially obscuring domain specific understanding. This study validated a focused KAP instrument for SDG 14 Life Below Water and sustainable marine conservation, comprising three core constructs: Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice. Items were adapted from Cheng et al. (2025), and a large-scale survey was administered to 448 Taiwanese university students using convenience sampling with proportional regional representation. The sample comprised 207 males (46.2%) and 241 females (53.8%), with 281 students (62.7%) from humanities and social sciences domain and 167 students (37.3%) from science and engineering domain. Confirmatory factor analysis using AMOS indicated satisfactory model fit across all indices. Reliability analyses showed strong internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha values ranging from 0.885 to 0.950 and composite reliability (CR) values from 0.881 to 0.951. Convergent validity was supported by average variance extracted values above 0.50 for the Knowledge and Practice constructs. Although the Attitude construct yielded a slightly lower AVE of 0.469, all standardized factor loadings were significant and ranged from 0.530 to 0.792, indicating acceptable construct validity. Overall, the results confirm that the KAP-based Sustainable Marine Conservation Questionnaire is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing university students’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward marine sustainability and can support future educational evaluation and intervention research.

Authors:
Kun-Hung Cheng, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Kun-Hung Cheng is currently a Professor of Graduate Institute of Library & Information Science, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan.

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