HUMAN CAPITAL, SOCIAL CAPITAL, CLIMATE CHANGE AWARENESS, AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING OF SELECTED MaPSA AND CEAP–NCR TEACHERS
Prof. Johnny T. Amora
President, Philippine Association of Researchers
and Statistical Software Users (PARSSU)
Good afternoon. The topic that was assigned to me is the analysis of the survey that we conducted yesterday. The number of teachers who participated in the survey is 77 out of the 81 teachers. The data were just processed last night and it was very fast because of the software. Thank you, to SPSS because I was able to finish the task.
As Dr. Biliran mentioned earlier, there are four variables: We have human capital, social capital, climate change, and subjective well-being. These are the variables included in the survey. Dr. Biliran provided already the definitions and she elaborated the concepts about the four variables but since this is a research, I also included definitions coming from different researches. For example, if we talk about human capital, this is about the stock of knowledge, habits, social, and personality attributes, including creativity, embodied in the ability to perform labor so as to produce economic value (Golden, 2018).
Then the other variable—social capital—according to Putnam (1995), relates to features of social organization, such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. If you based on the literatures on social capital, there are published articles in 1994, 1995, 1997, and 2000, and different authors have their own definitions of social capital. In 2016, we tried to develop and published a questionnaire; we called it the “Social Capital Survey Questionnaire,” and we successfully published it in a Catholic journal, a scholarly academic journal published in Rome, Italy.
Third is an existing questionnaire about social capital. This was developed by the World Bank, but the developed questionnaire is qualitative, meaning to say, all items are open-ended. We tried to translate or transform this qualitative into quantitative because my team works more on quantitative research. We tried to develop a quantitative version of this World Bank survey using the seven dimensions of the social capital questionnaire. These seven dimensions (Groups and Networks, Trust and Solidarity, Collective Action, Information and Communication, Social Cohesion and Inclusion, and Empowerment and Political Action, and Economic Performance) were used in the survey you answered yesterday.
There are plenty of definitions and research on climate change—definitions by scholars and research worldwide—but since we are Catholic, Dr. Biliran provided me a copy of a 20-item questionnaire and these items were from Pope Francis. All the items are Likert-type items.
Subjective well-being is basically a person’s cognitive and affective evaluation of his/her life (Diener, Lucas, & Oshi 2002). But we have an equivalent term to that, we call it life satisfaction. Persons with high subjective well-being have high satisfaction in life because they have a more positive view despite their negative experiences.
The objectives of this short research or mini-study is to determine the level of awareness of the teachers about climate change. Since you are the participants of this study, you will know your level of awareness as a group. Also, the study seeks to determine the perception of the teachers about the social capital in terms of the seven dimensions, determine the level of life satisfaction or subjective wellbeing of the teachers, and investigate the relationship of the following variables: Teachers’ sociodemographic profile, climate change awareness, social capital, and subjective well-being.
Here is the conceptual framework of the study. When we talk about social capital, there is an arrow going to subjective well-being. This indicates that we hypothesized that this variable has an effect on subjective well-being, or that this variable is directly correlated to subjective well-being. By the way, we already established this relationship in our research, so we can use this as literature to support the findings of the present study. In other words, there are already existing studies that investigate the direct effect of social capital on subjective well-being.
If we look also at climate change awareness, we hypothesized that this variable has an impact on subjective well-being. I used a double-headed arrow to indicate that we want to know if there is correlation between social capital and climate change. Then, from the socio-demographic profile, I used three arrows going to social capital, climate change, and subjective well-being. We want to know the predictors of climate change. Do these demographic profiles affect the social capital, climate change, and subjective well-being? We tried to explore possible relationships and links among these variables.
I would like to tell you that the sample size might be smaller, but since we have five streams and this is the first stream, we hope to collect more data as we move forward. At least today, we have the initial results.
Let us proceed to the method. Now, how do we answer the objectives and the
questions? We have 77 participants and this is already a good start. The average age is 39, then you have a median of 40, which means 50% of this group is below 40 and the other 50% is above 40. The age range is between 21 and 58. In terms of gender, majority of you are females—77%. In terms of civil status, 52% is married, 45% is single, and 3% is widowed. In terms of education, 27% has a Bachelor’s degree, 51% has a Master’s degree, and 1% has doctorate units. For employment classification, 66% are teachers, 26% are administrators, and 4% are school staff, while there is 4% with no answer for this part. And for the length of service, it is between below 1 year up to 36 years, with an average of 15 years and the median of 13 years.
About the questionnaire, we need to specify whether it is valid. This is to ensure that the questionnaire is reliable. I will present the history of this questionnaire. We had our first attempt in 2016 where the overall reliability coefficient is 0.92. In another study conducted in 2017, the reliability coefficient is 0.94. Now, in this study with 77 respondents, the reliability coefficient is 0.92.
Let us have the results. In terms of level of climate change awareness, we noticed that in the first six items, your level of awareness is very high. Note that the highest is four in the Likert scale. If we look at the average rating, it is very close to four. In the next seven items, it is still very high. However, the respondents have a low level of awareness on the following items: Q3, Q16, Q18, and Q20.
- Q3: My health is dependent on the conditions of my environment.
- Q16: Climate change is not my personal problem.
- Q18: The availability of the earth’s resources is infinite.
- Q20: I can use the resources of the earth in any way I want to.
Combining all the results of the 20 items, the overall mean is 3.34 and the overall level of awareness is high.
Let us proceed to the social capital dimension. You have a high level on collective action, information and communication, and empowerment and political action. There is also a high level on economic performance, trust and solidarity, and groups and networks. However, the social capital dimension in terms of social cohesion and inclusion is low. Overall, with the average of 3.02, your perception about social capital is high.
The results on subject well-being components are also high. This means that majority of you have a positive outlook in life.
Here are the relationships among the four variables. Education and social capital are positively and significantly correlated with climate change awareness. Marital status is a predictor of social capital. Single teachers tend to have higher level of social capital than married ones. Social capital is positively correlated with subjective well-being. Higher social capital tends to have higher subjective wellbeing.
Here are the conclusions of this present study.
- Teachers have low awareness about the following climate change indicators: My health is dependent on the conditions of my environment; the availability of the earth’s resources is infinite; I can use the resources of the earth in any way I want to; and climate change is not my personal problem.
- Teachers have a high to very high level of awareness on the other 16 indicators of climate change.
- Teachers have a low perception of social cohesion and inclusion. They believe that often, differences in education, wealth/material possessions, religious beliefs, political party, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, and race or tribes are the causes of problems.
- Teachers have high to very high perceptions of the other dimensions of social capital such as groups and networks, trust and solidarity, collective actions, information and communication, empowerment and political action, and economic performance.
- Education is a significant predictor of climate change awareness. As education increases, the awareness tends to get higher.
- Social capital and climate change awareness are positively correlated. Meaning, as social capital tends to get higher, the awareness increases.
- Education positively affects social capital, which in turn affects subjective well-being.
Thank you very much.