Philippine E-Journals

Development and Validation of Survey Instrument on Academic Institutions’ Readiness to Support Community Mangrove Rehabilitation Programs

Joy D. Talens | Marisol A. Laguardia

 

Abstract:

“One Million Trees and Beyond” project is grounded on one of the guiding principles of De La Salle Philippines that is stewardship of God’s creation. This project provides a venue for more proactive responses to environmental issues via tree planting activities and reforestation programs and promotes  a more practical “learning-by-doing” approach in environmental education as it entails collaboration among Lasallian family and its various partner communities and agencies. Just like  any  other  environmental  projects,  one of the challenges faced is the limited level of participation of the stakeholders in the activities.  Most  of  the  volunteers  were  just  involved in one-time mangrove planting activity. With the end goal of maximizing gains from the project, this study aimed to develop and validate a survey instrument on academic institutions’ readiness to support community mangrove rehabilitation. This study followed four steps in establishing the validity and reliability of the instrument such as defining constructs and content domain; generating and judging measurement items; designing and conducting studies to develop scale; and, finalizing the scale. The data of   the research were gathered in 2011 – 2012 and 2012 - 2013 academic years and were analyzed through confirmatory factor analysis. If this instrument will  be utilized, it is expected that before administrators, faculty members and students engage themselves in this activity their readiness level will first be determined. Thus, intervention or orientation will be done first to ensure proper management of mangrove forests.