Workshops Based on Protection Motivation Theory and Climate Change

The Effect of Climate Change Workshops Based on Protection Motivation Theory on Middle School Students' Climate Change Awareness, Environmental Awareness, and Eco-Friendly Behaviors: A Randomized Controlled Trial

"This study aims to evaluate the impact of climate change workshops grounded in Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) on students' climate change awareness, environmental consciousness, and pro-environmental behaviors. The primary objective is to foster awareness, environmental literacy, and sustainable behavioral shifts among middle school students, thereby empowering them to adopt eco-friendly practices to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Note on Protocol Revision: Due to cognitive suitability concerns identified during the pilot phase, the target population was shifted from primary to middle school students following expert consultation. This shift necessitated modifications to certain assessment instruments. These revisions have been approved by the ethics committee, and a new ethics approval number has been issued (Date of first protocol entry: July,2024).

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Health Behavior; Students; Climate Change
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Climate Change Workshops Based on Protection Motivation Theory

Detailed Description

Climate change is a global problem and one of the most important public health issues of the 21st century. The direct and indirect impacts of climate change on human health are as follows. While it poses unique and significant threats to public health and well-being through direct impacts on heat stress, flooding and the spread of infectious diseases, food and water insecurity, conflict and migration, and in relation to fossil fuels, it also adversely affects human health through indirect impacts on livelihoods, equity, community health and social support structures, which are social determinants of health.

Due to the increasing effects of climate change, many different disciplines such as physics, biology, meteorology and geology are carrying out important studies with the main aim of halting the negative trend and ensuring the survival of species. In addition to scientific studies, many institutions and organisations are raising awareness of climate change and encouraging people to take institutional and individual action. Scientific studies in the field of health focus on understanding the effects of climate change on human health and evaluating the impact of interventions that focus on individual behaviour change in the fight against climate change. These are interventions such as sending messages for environmentally friendly behaviour, online chats, nature-based education programmes, watching films and peer education.

When the effectiveness of these interventions is evaluated, it is seen that they have a positive effect in reducing the negative consequences of climate change while improving their environmental knowledge, attitudes and intentions. However, while the impact of the interventions on climate change is small while the interventions are ongoing, there is no evidence of a positive impact when the interventions end. The fact that the effects of interventions are long-lasting highlights the need for interventions that are modelled and targeted at younger age groups to achieve behaviour change. The theory of protective motivation, which is based on the assessment of the magnitude of harm caused by an event, the likelihood of the event occurring and the presence of a protective activity, is a promising theory for mitigating the impacts of climate change and achieving behaviour change.

This theory, which is educational and motivational, offers suggestions as to why people tend to engage in unhealthy practices and how these behaviours can be changed. From the literature, it is known that interventions with primary school children can lead to recycling awareness, environmental sensitivity, eco-donation and eco-action. In order for these effects to be lasting, it is also important to ensure the permanence of threat awareness and coping. For this reason, this study examines the effect of climate change workshops based on Protection Motivation Theory for primary school students on the outcomes of students' environmental awareness, climate change awareness and adoption of environmentally friendly behaviours.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 66
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Deniz Kocoglu-Tanyer, PhD; Phone Number: +903322350896; Email: deniizkocoglu@gmail.com

Study Locations

• Turkey (Türkiye)
  • Konya, Turkey (Türkiye), 42130
    • Recruiting
    • Selçuklu Belediyesi Ortaokulu
    • Contact: Deniz KOCOGLU-TANYER; Email: deniizkocoglu@gmail.com
    • Contact: Ramazan Akçakaya; Phone Number: +90332355 25 64

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Being 12-13 years old and attend the school where the study is being conducted,
• Voluntarily agree to take part in the research,
• Consent from the student's family to participate in the study,

Exclusion Criteria:

* If the pupil has an allergy to plants or grass.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Climate Change Mitigation Workshop Grup; The experimental group will take part in seven weekly workshops based on Protection Motivation Theory .	Behavioral: Climate Change Workshops Based on Protection Motivation Theory; The experimental group will participate in five weekly workshops. Each workshop is scheduled to last 40 minutes. The climate change awareness workshops, grounded in Protection Motivation Theory, will address the following subjects: the balance of nature and climate change, the adoption of environmentally friendly behaviours, calculating one's ecological footprint, mitigating the effects of climate change, and the Eco-School program. The workshops will include a variety of interactive activities, such as students expressing their thoughts on weekly topics, playing topic-related games, brainstorming, watching videos, writing essays, making seed balls, and delivering presentations. Feedback was obtained from four experts for the prepared workshops. The programme was evaluated in terms of content, duration, and compatibility with the model by experts in the fields of public health (three) and education and programme development (one).
No Intervention: No-intervention Control; The control group will not receive any intervention. It was planned to apply the data collection instruments to the control group under the supervision of the researcher and in parallel with the intervention group during the same period.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Global clımate change awareness scale for middle school students	The scale developed by Satmaz et al. (2024) consists of 19 items across three sub-dimensions: 'effects of climate change,' 'knowledge awareness,' and 'causes of climate change.' The scale's reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) was found to be 0.910, and the total explained variance was 57.181%. Data were collected using a five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (Strongly Agree) to 5 (Strongly Disagree), with intermediate values representing varying degrees of agreement.	T0 (Pre-test) T1 (15 days after the end of the procedure) T2 (3 months after the end of the procedure)
Environmental Attitudes at the Middle School Level	The scale, developed by Sontay et al. (2015), consists of 15 items and three sub-dimensions. The sub-dimensions of the scale are "environmental responsibility", "environmental sensitivity", and "environmental perception". The environmental sensitivity sub-dimension of the scale has 5 items, and its Cronbach alpha value is 0.807. While the total variance of the scale is 59.075, the variance of the environmental sensitivity sub-dimension is found to be 19.1.	T0 (Pre-test) T1 (15 days after the end of the procedure) T2 (3 months after the end of the procedure)
Environmental Responsible Behavior Scale	The Environmental Responsible Behaviors Scale (ERBS) was developed to measure environmentally responsible behaviors in fifth-grade students (Erdogan, Ok, and Marcinkowski, 2012). The scale under consideration is comprised of 26 items and four sub-dimensions: physical conservation behavior, consumption and economic behavior, personal and general persuasion behavior, and political behavior. The Cronbach's alpha values for the sub-dimensions are as follows: 0.80 for physical conservation behavior, 0.60 for consumption and economic behavior, 0.79 for personal and general persuasion behavior, and 0.91 for political behavior. The scale's validity was assessed through confirmatory factor analysis, which yielded favorable results. An increase in the scale score is indicative of a positive change in behavior.	T0 (Pre-test) T1 (15 days after the end of the procedure) T2 (3 months after the end of the procedure)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
The Questionnaire on Children's Perceptions of the Four Elements of the Theory of Protective Motivation	This 13-item questionnaire was developed based on the work of Shafiei and Maleksaeidi (2020). It employs a three-point Likert scale (1: Disagree, 2: Partially Agree, 3: Agree). In line with the theory, the 'threat assessment' section has seven items (perceived severity: 4; perceived vulnerability: 3), and the 'coping assessment' section has six items (response effectiveness: 3; self-efficacy: 3). A prior study by the research team with students showed a Cronbach's alpha of 0.84. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed that the items account for 72% of the environmental attitudes targeted by Protection Motivation Theory. A higher score in the threat assessment section indicates a heightened perception of threat, while a higher score in the coping assessment section indicates an increase in coping capacity.	T0 (Pre-test) T1 (15 days after the end of the procedure) T2 (3 months after the end of the procedure)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Selcuk University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): February 18, 2026
• Primary Completion (Estimated): April 1, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): July 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: November 5, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 7, 2024
• First Posted (Actual): November 8, 2024

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 25, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 20, 2026
• Last Verified: March 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Awareness; Climate Change; Protection Motivation Theory; Primary School Students; Eco-friendly behavior
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavior; Health Behavior
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2025/122

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Data supporting this study are not publicly available due to ethical reasons but the datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available by emailing deniizkocoglu@gmail.com upon reasonable request.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Beginning 3 months and ending 2 years after the publication of results
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: the datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available by emailing deniizkocoglu@gmail.com upon reasonable request.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; ICF

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No