Measuring Urban Environmental Awareness: Instrument Validation and Analysis in Urban Contexts

Environmental and climate change issues are a consequence of human actions that, whether consciously or unconsciously, damage the environment. The main objective of this research is to develop an instrument to measure environmental awareness levels among citizens. The developed questionnaire consists of 34 items, adapted and grouped into four dimensions: affective, cognitive, conative, and active. The main distinction of this questionnaire from prior models is its aim to assess environmental awareness levels applicable to any citizen. The scale’s reliability is demonstrated by high internal consistency (α = 0.965 and Ω = 0.958). The key findings on scale performance are evident in the scale’s validity, supported by a confirmatory factor analysis that shows a KMO index of 0.981, a significant Bartlett’s test of sphericity (p < 0.01), and a matrix determinant below 0.001. The maximum likelihood model shows an adequate fit (p < 0.01) and identifies four factors, which together explain 70.134% of the total variance: the first factor contributes 53.075%, the second 12.097%, the third 2.962%, and the fourth 2%. An important finding is the instrument’s high consistency and robustness for evaluating environmental awareness in citizens, offering a reliable and specific tool for environmental studies in urban contexts.