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Brennan M and Cotgrave A (2013) Development of a measure to assess attitudes towards sustainable development in the built environment: a pilot. In: Smith, S D and Ahiaga-Dagbui, D D (Eds.), Proceedings 29th Annual ARCOM Conference, 2-4 September 2013, Reading, UK, Association of Researchers in Construction Management, 1265–1273.

  • Type: Conference Proceedings
  • Keywords: attitude, psychology, psychometrics, scale development, sustainable development
  • ISBN/ISSN: 978-0-9552390-7-6
  • URL: http://www.arcom.ac.uk/-docs/proceedings/ar2013-1265-1273_Brennan_Cotgrave.pdf
  • Abstract:
    The recognition of the importance of the construction industry for the three dimensions of sustainable development, the environmental, economic and social has gained widespread momentum in recent years. Yet despite policy drives and regulations from government as well as efforts from higher education institutions, progress towards implementation of sustainable practices within industry remains slow. The literature evidences that attitudes towards sustainable development are a major barrier to implementation of such practices. At present no measure exists to quantify attitudes towards all three dimensions of sustainability within a construction context. This paper describes the steps taken to develop such a measure, the Sustainable Development Attitudes Measure (SDAM). Once developed, in order to test the questionnaire and validate for dissemination in industry the SDAM was piloted amongst built environment students (n=230). Results indicated that the measure was both valid and reliable (_=.87). The resulting measurement tool will allow a broad range of practitioners working across the construction industry and higher education to assess which aspects of sustainable development are favoured over others and target less favourable aspects through increasing awareness, training and curriculum design. Validation processes are described along with directions for future work in relation to further validation of the measure and its usage.