View of A Structural Model of Green Technology Practices among Primary School Teachers at Northern Region Malaysia

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A Structural Model of Green Technology Practices among Primary School Teachers at

Northern Region Malaysia

Talirkodi Vinathan1, Arumugam Raman2

1,2_{Universiti Utara Malaysia}

talir_suria@yahoo.com1,arumugam@uum.edu.my2

Article History: Received: 10 November 2020; Revised: 12 January 2021; Accepted: 27January 2021; Published online: 05April 2021

Abstract: Over the past few years, green technology practices have received increasing attention since it is considered

critical for protecting the environment. However, only a few studies have presented green technology practices in the education field. Green education is viewed as a learning process that involves problem-solving and students' ability to make informed decisions for the future. This study aimed to examine the level and influence of primary school teachers' awareness and motivation in accepting green technology practices. Besides, this study aimed to examine the moderation effect of knowledge and gender on the relationship between awareness and motivation with the acceptance of green technology practices. This study employed a quantitative approach. Thus, 355 usable data from teachers have been collected in Malaysia's northern region, and the data were analysed using SmartPLS. The findings show that awareness and motivation are positively and directly associated with green technology practices. Also, it was found that only knowledge to be a moderator in the relationship between awareness, motivation, and green technology practices among primary teachers in northern region Malaysia.

Keywords:Green technology, Awareness, Motivation, Practice, Structural equation Modeling (SEM)

1. Introduction

Environmental issues that are now shrouded in all countries have sparked green technology awareness (Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 2017). The term "technology" in this aspect refers to using knowledge and methods for daily life's practical purpose (Hong, 2011). Green technology practices are needed in services and products as an appropriate solution following global warming and environmental pollution (Rao, 2016).

Green technology is the development and application of products, equipment, and systems to conserve the environment and natural resources to minimise human activities' negative impact. Green technology is the best approach to address environmental issues and economic growth. It is also in line with governments worldwide' main agenda who are giving priority to environmental problems such as global warming and climate change. The most significant benefit in applying green technology is to improve the quality of life by providing more sustainable environmental quality. The negative impact on the environment is minimal if all parties are using green technology in their life (Annual report of green technology and water, 2015).

In education, green technology is a process to understand human interaction with the environment and how humans manage the environment responsibly for human beings' well-being (Nurul Hidayah et al., 2013). According to the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNESCO 1996) report, green education is a learning process that involves problem-solving and students' ability to make informed decisions for the future, especially for future generations. Furthermore, according to professional people and world researchers any solution to environmental problems requires knowledge and understanding of green that is deeply rooted in the education system (Khan, 2013; Deka et al., 2013).

2. Problem Statement

The Malaysian government is also struggling with extreme weather change (Eleventh Malaysia Plan 2016-2020, 2015). According to Rabiatul Atiqah (2018), rapid modernisation's has negative implications for its landscape. In particular, the development of the industrial sector, agriculture sector, deforestation and other human activities have contributed to climate change and natural disasters in Malaysia.

This is further evidenced by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency's data in 2017, which states the total greenhouse gas emissions in Malaysia. Based on the study, it was found that Malaysia has experienced a significant increase in the release of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide (CO2). Based on the findings, greenhouse gas emissions in 2006 were 0.24 CO2 Gigatonnes (Gt) and increased to 0.33 CO2 Gt in 2016. In comparison, carbon dioxide emissions recorded 0.18 CO2 Gt in 2006 and expanded to 0.27 in 2016 (Olivier et al., 2017).

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Meanwhile, the United Nations data in 2012 shows that Malaysia is in 26th place in the most carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to 0.62 percent of global gas emissions or 6.7 metric tons per year. Thus, Malaysia's mean temperature increases between 0.14 degrees celsius to 0.25 degrees celsius every ten years (Malaysia, 2015).

Thus, the Malaysian government's concern over climate change in the country has triggered the government's shift towards green technology development. Thus, the National Green Technology Policy (DTHN) was launched on 24 July 2009 at the Malaysian Energy Center (PTM), Bangi. The fifth strategy in DTHN is to strengthen efforts to promote and increase awareness of green technology by implementing comprehensive educational activities and programs. Therefore, the development of an effective syllabus system has been suggested to foster a culture of appreciating Green Technology Practices among students at every level (National Library of Malaysia, 2012).

Moreover, FarshadHashemzadeh (2016) investigated the level of environmental awareness, attitudes, and behaviours involving 337 students and 12 teachers. In his study, most of teachers lack personal environmental awareness and lack of knowledge about the environment's concept such as ozone layer depletion, acid rain and greenhouse effects. They also lack an understanding of the environment and the concept of sustainable development. Thus, the teachers stated that they could not provide productive teaching in environmental issues.

While the findings of a study conducted by Mohd Zuhair (2015) involving 43 Northern Zone Engineering Technology teachers showed that teachers' level of awareness and practice on green technology is at a moderate level despite these teachers' attitude is at a positive level. The results also found no significant difference with the level of green technology awareness and practice based on various areas of teacher specialisation.

Furthermore, the study of Mageswary, Zurida and Norita (2013) also stated that the lack of skills and training in applying green concepts acquired by teachers and prospective teachers in teacher education institutions has also been a factor that encourages teachers to be less aware and motivated towards green practices. This causes green education to fail to achieve its goals when they educate students in school.

All planning in education, namely giving green awareness to students, will not succeed without sacrifice, especially from educators or teachers (Hj. Sabar& Hj. Khalid, 2005). Also, teachers need to be efficient in using technology to implement innovations among students (Raman & Mohd Sofian, 2015). The study of TomayessIssa et al. (2014) explains that teachers as academics have a high responsibility in raising awareness of green technology practices among students who are considered leaders in the future. Therefore, this study is deemed to be essential to be conducted to fill the gaps that exist in the acceptance of green technology among teachers. Hence, this study is aimed to look at the level and influence of awareness and motivation of primary school teachers in the acceptance of green technology practices. Besides, this study evaluates the moderation effect of knowledge and gender on the relationship between awareness and motivation with the acceptance of green technology practices.

3. Literature Review

Lydia A.Kimaryo (2011) suggests that teachers need to be aware of green technology to integrate the green curriculum. This is because the integration of environmental education or green technology is highly dependent on teachers' awareness to link environmental education in teaching content. Teachers involved in the study of Lydia A.Kimaryo also argued that most of the subjects taught have now been related to environmental education. So, teachers need to be aware and knowledgeable about integrating green topics into all subjects' content. However, if teachers are not knowledgeable with green issues, it can cause non-confidence and will face problems in integrating environmental education into their teaching.

Kerlin et al. (2015) in his study involving high school teachers have stated that teachers' green awareness determines their greenfield involvement. The teachers in his study collectively called for additional professional development to develop their awareness of green characteristics. Some teachers admit that the lack of a complete understanding of green infrastructure and how to relate it also affects teachers' performance. While knowledge is

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an issue for many teachers, there are also a handful of teachers who have imparted extensive knowledge of green characteristics. Researchers found that the comments were voiced by science teachers only. At the same time, other teachers admit that they will not be confident and comfortable carrying out green teaching practices as long as professional development activities are carried out among teachers.

Based on the study of Ramesh Maharjan (2013), it was found that teachers' motivation depends onthe teacher's concern about the current environmental changes. This is because the green information source is the key to the initiative to carry out learning. Knowledge gained by teachers will pave the way for them to attract students in the lessons. Therefore, current issues regarding the environment that occur in the country also need to be known in advance by teachers to deliver the content of the latest and effective lessons in the classroom. Teachers who are fully knowledgeable in current green topics alone will be more motivated in conducting green teaching in the school.

In the study of FilipposZacharioua et al. (2017), positive teacher exploration of green education application has a relationship with teachers' understanding and knowledge of the environment. Teachers' understanding and knowledge are influenced by family, social and pollution problems that exist in their environment. These factors are the elements that determine the motivation of teachers in applying green education in schools.

4. Research Methodology

This study is quantitative involving descriptive analysis, a questionnaire survey that aims to determine the level and influence of awareness and motivation in accepting green technology practices. This study also evaluates the effect of knowledge and gender moderators on the relationship between awareness and motivation with the acceptance of green technology practices.

The sampling technique used in this study is divided into three stages. In the first stage, the researcher has used random sampling technique (area). Cluster sampling is suitable for use in this study because the study population is scattered in three states. Next, the second sampling that has been used in this study is a simple random to select several cities from the Eastern Zone cluster from each state. In the third stage, a simple systematic random sampling technique was used to determine the schools' names participating in this study. Finally, 42 primary schools were selected from the three states with the involvement of 379 teachers. The final sample was 355 teachers, representing a return rate of 93.6%. The finalised sample meets therequirement of the minimum sample size to ensure adequate statistical power.

In this study, descriptive statistics will be calculated through Statistical Package Social Science or SPSS version 21.0. Meanwhile, reliability test, validity test and hypotheses will be analysed using Smart PLS version 3.2.7 through partial least square structural equation modelling or PLS-SEM approach.

5. Result and Discussion

Measurement Model of Green Technology Practices Acceptance

The evaluation of a conceptual framework using PLS analysis contains two steps. The first step includes the assessment of the measurement (outer) model. The second step involves the assessment of the structural (inner). The first step in evaluating a research model is to present the measurement model results to examine the indicator reliability internal consistency reliability,convergent validity and discriminant validity Hair et al. (2011).

As shown in Table 1, composite reliability for all construct exceed the recommended threshold value of 0.70 (Hair et al., 2011). Therefore, all measures are robust in terms of their reliability. Henseler et al. (2009) pointed out that composite reliability is more suitable for PLS-SEM. In our study, the composite reliabilities range from 0.887 to 0.941, above the 0.70 (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988). Finally, all indicator loadings exceed the recommended threshold value of 0.60 (Henseler et al., 2009). However, three loadings were omitted due to weak loadings (refer to Table 1).

According to Fornell and Larcker (1981), each construct's AVE was calculated in our proposed model (see Table 1). Since all construct's AVE are above the 0.50 cut-off, therefore, the results support convergent validity.

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Table 1. Descriptive statistic and reliability of constructs (N=335)

Construct Item Loading CR AVE Deleted Items

Adoption of Green Technology Practices (Practices) A02 .810 .966 .672 A01, A04 A03 .855 A05 .883 A06 .835 A07 .759 A08 .898 A09 .716 A10 .881 A11 .910 A12 .853 A13 .785 A14 .749 A15 .778 A16 .731 Awareness of Green Technology (Awareness) K01 .906 .976 .776 K02 .930 K03 .939 K04 .877 K05 .857 K11 K06 .886 K07 .920 K08 .784 K09 .806 K10 .901 K12 .908 K13 .840

Green Technology Motivation (Motivation) M01 .922 .988 .866 M02 .930 M03 .932 M04 .942 M05 .935 M06 .926 M07 .929 - M08 .951 M09 .912 M10 .902 M11 .937 M12 .933 M13 .947

The PLS-SEM measurement model analysis offers three options for recalling the case's differentiation: cross-loadings, Fornell-Larcker criteria, and Hetereotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratio. However, the latest criticism of Fornell-Larcker's cross-loading capabilities and criteria for assessing the validity of differentiating consistently has led to introducing new techniques referred to as HTMT ratio (Hair et al., 2017; Henseler, Ringle, &Sarstedt, 2015). HTMT is a ratio between the mean of all item correlations across constructs in measuring different constructs with the average mean correlation of items inmeasuring the same construct (Henseler et al., 2015)

Therefore, this study reported a distinguishing ratio using HTMT ratio as recommended by Henseler et al. (2015). The HTMT ratio exceeding 0.85 indicates the existence of problems of distinguishing (Kline, 2011). Table 2 shows that all constructs have shown sufficient differential cases (HTMT < 0.85) following the above-stated conditions and guidelines. Therefore, the conditions of separation distinguish in this measurement model have been met.

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Table 2.Discriminant validity of latent variables

Practices Awareness Motivation

Practices

Awareness .739

Motivation .784 .831

Structural Model of Green Technology Practices Acceptance

Next is assessing the structural model through the bootstrapping analysis (Streukens&Werelds, 2016). In this study, 5000 subsamples through bootstrapping were done, and the result of the structural model is as illustrated as in Figure 1. Table 3 illustrated the findings of hypotheses for this study. From 8 hypotheses, only five hypotheses were accepted. Awareness was found positively significant with green technology practices at (ß=0.266, t= 3.115, p < 0.01). Motivation also was found positively significant with green technology practices at (ß= 0.542, t= 6.297, p < 0.01). Knowledge was found positively significant with green technology practices at (ß= 0.180, t= 1.915, p < 0.01). On the other hand, knowledge were found to be a moderator role in the relationship between awareness and green technology practices at (ß= 0.166, t= 2.061, p < 0.01) as well as a moderator role in the relationship between motivation and green technology practices at (ß= 0.374, t= 2.073, p < 0.01).

Figure 1. Structural model for Green Technology Practices Acceptance Table 3. Direct hypotheses result of structural model

Relationship β t- Value p- Value Results

H1: Awareness Practices .266 3.115 .001 Accepted

H2: Motivation  Practices .542 6.297 <.001 Accepted

H3: Gender  Practices .061 1.037 .150 Rejected

H4: Knowledge Practices .180 1.915 .028 Accepted

H5: Awareness x Gender  Practices .041 .240 .405 Rejected

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H7: Awareness x Knowledge  Practices .166 2.061 .020 Accepted

H8: Motivation x Knowledge  Practices .374 2.073 .019 Accepted

6. Discussion

Findings H1, H2 and H4 translate that awareness, motivation, and knowledge positively influence or affect acceptance of green technology practices.These influences or effects mean that, when awareness, motivation and knowledge increases, the acceptance of green technology practices has also increased. The findings are consistent with previous studies (Zacharioua et al., 2017; Kerlin et al.,2015; Maharjan, 2013).

Male or female gender differences will not increase or decrease in acceptance of primary school teachers against green technology practices. Tan and Lau (2010) indicate no significant differences between male and female students in their environmental attitudes and their attitudes on green products. This finding consistent with H5 and H6 results means that gender does not play a role in strengthening or undermining the relationship between awareness and acceptance of green technology practices and the relationship between motivation and acceptance of green technology practices

However, H7 and H8 mean that knowledge plays a role in strengthening the relationship between awareness and acceptance of the organisation's communications green technology practices and the relationship between motivation and acceptance of green technology practices. The influence of awareness and motivation on acceptance of green technology practices will become increasingly powerful as primary school teachers have high knowledge of green technology.

7. Conclusion

Understanding green practices are crucial for us to have a significant effect on implementation. There is no doubt that individual knowledge contributes to teachers' deeper concerns and knowledge about implementing green technology in the current practices, especially at the school setting. Teachers must meet all the green practices' understanding to ensure the knowledge of green technology well delivered to the students. The study has a limited sample size; more teachers should participate in green technology survey, which is not limited to the northern region. A larger sample with more assorted qualities would have profited the study. Another possible change in the study could have been interviewing participants directly. This method could have included imperative subjective information and more prominent understanding of the participant's ideas and assessments.

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