Environmental Volunteering Values among University Students: Comparison between Gender and Study Stream

Environmental education has been embedded across the curriculum in the primary and secondary school curriculum to foster the value of volunteerism in environmental conservation. In this regard, students’ involvement in environmental volunteerism requires support from different parties, especially educational institutions. In this light, students often face constraints that damper their intention to continue their involvement as environmental volunteers. The values of environmental volunteerism, specifically religion, biospheric, egoistic, and altruistic, are predictive factors in sustaining students’ involvement in environmental volunteerism. Thus, this study aims to examine the values of environmental volunteerism among university students and compare these values based on respondents’ gender and study streams. This quantitative study employed the survey research method where sets of the questionnaire were distributed to 357 respondents chosen from environmental volunteers across Klang Valley, Malaysia. The data was analysed using descriptive, t-test and ANOVA. The results showed that students demonstrate high environmental volunteerism values, specifically religious, biospheric, egoistic, and altruistic values. There are significant differences in the egoistic and religious values among female and male respondents. The male respondents showed a higher egoistic value, while female respondents demonstrated a higher religious value. Furthermore, respondents from different study streams demonstrated different environmental volunteerism values. This study’s findings emphasize that different approaches based on gender and study streams should be taken to foster environmental volunteerism values among university students. This could also help sustain university students’ involvement in environmental volunteering activities.


Introduction
Our environment is in a worrying state, as reflected by the increasing destruction of forests, endangered wildlife, and climate change we experience today (Clémençon, 2016). Environmental issues present a global and universal problem that needs to be given the utmost attention by every party (San & Azman, 2011). Stopping environmental destruction requires large-scale environmental conservation efforts, such as environmental volunteerism (Woosnam et al., 2019).
In this light, volunteerism is a form of pro-social activity carried out with willingness and without any expectation of financial or other rewards (Woosnam et al., 2019;Omoto & Packard, 2016). However, the issues of dropout in environmental volunteering create a sense of urgency to identify factors contributing to environmental volunteering behavior. One of the factors that affect environmental volunteering behavior is values (Binder & Blankenberg, 2016;Woosnam et al., 2019).
Cultivating the value of environmental volunteerism in the early stages begins with environmental education across the curriculum at the school level. Environmental education aims to provide knowledge, increase motivation, change attitudes, and higher commitment to positive behaviour towards the environment (Samuelsson et al., 2018;Rentzou, 2021). Individuals will be less engaged in environmental-related activities when they lack environmental knowledge and see no value that could motivate them to engage (Kennedy et al., 2009;Cheeseman & Wright, 2019). Environmental education can nurture environmental value through activities carried out with students. Students at the university level have achieved the maturity which allows them to participate in large-scale environmental conservation through environmental volunteering activities. However, support should be given to sustain students' engagement as environmental volunteers. This is because the sustainability of their involvement in environmental volunteerism is influenced by different subjective factors, such as individual personality traits, motivations, attitudes, values, and life experiences (Fang et al., 2017;He et al., 2019;Wilson, 2012). Individuals are also influenced by their social environment, such as social norms associated with values and traditions, which affect their behaviour (Ishizawa, 2015;Youssim et al., 2015).
Value orientation is a fundamental factor that shapes our behaviour towards the environment (Schwartz, 2012). However, most behaviour studies have fo-gious values (Okun et al., 2017;Chowdhury, 2018) or culture can influence a person's intention to engage in environmental volunteer activities (Sloane & Pröbstl-Haider, 2019;Fang et al., 2017). On the other hand, studies found that environmental values in Asian countries differ from Western countries (Zheng et al., 2019). Aoyagi-Usui et al. (2003)'s study was conducted in Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines and it found that the environmental values in Asian countries are aligned with traditional values. This reflects the importance of studying values that focus on engagement as environmental volunteerism to understand the value orientation that could sustain students' involvement in environmental volunteer activities.
Demographic backgrounds also influence students' engagement as environmental volunteers (Niebuur et al., 2018). These include gender (Taniguchi, 2006;Einolf & Chambre, 2011) and the stream of study (Kyriakopoulos et al., 2020;Goldman et al., 2015). Past studies found that women are more likely to engage in environmental conservation than men (Lynn & Longhi, 2011;Macias & William, 2016). However, Xiao and Hong (2018) found men express more concern for the environment than women, while Piyapong (2019) reported that male students are more involved in environmental-related activities than female students.
Similarly, students involved in the science stream are more active in environmental volunteering activities than in other streams, including Islamic studies.
Meanwhile, another study by Christian et al. (2018) did not find that one's study stream affects students' involvement in environmental volunteering activities.
Such contradicting findings of past studies are not aligned with pro-environmental behaviour, especially in environmental volunteering activities. This demonstrates the need for researchers to analyse the differences in students' involvement in environmental volunteerism based on gender and study streams so that focused interventions can be planned and implemented.

Literature Review
The Role of Environmental Education on Environmental Volunteering Education about the environment, Education in the environment, and Education for the environment (Palmer, 1998). Most formal environmental education that begins in schools focuses on Education about and in the environment. On the other hand, hands-on education for the environment has been given less attention by educational institutions as a result of time constraints and a lack of commitment from educators (Shaari, 2009;Rahman et al., 2018). On the contrary, at the university level, students have reached a level of maturity that allows them to contribute energy and time to environmental conservation efforts. Research by de Agrela Gonçalves Jardim et al. (2017) showed that college students prioritize affection, relationships and social support in achieving their goals that are relevant to environmental volunteering participation. Establishing NGOs or clubs related to the environment and effective promotion have increased student participation in environmental volunteerism activities. Environmental volunteering activities not only reduce the cost of environmental management by the government, but they can also benefit the students involved in them (Woosnam et al., 2019;Omoto & Packard, 2016). Among the benefits gained by the students involved are personal development, knowledge, and skills in environmental management, improvement of relationships and networking, preparing for the career environment, and providing well-being to students (Seligman, 2011). Furthermore, integrating environmental education with environmental volunteering enables students to holistically apply their knowledge in environmental conservation efforts.

The Values of Environmental Volunteerism
The values that motivate a person to engage in environmental volunteer activities are related to societal norms (Fang et al., 2017), culture (Sloane & Probstl-Haider, 2019), and religious beliefs (Okun et al., 2017;Chowdhury, 2018;Crowe, 2013). These factors have led to different values of environmental volunteerism between countries. A study by Sloane & Probstl-Haider (2019) found that career opportunities and learning experiences have a higher influence on the involvement of respondents from Great Britain compared to respondents from Australia, who are more influenced by culturally related values.
As a Muslim-Malay majority country, Malaysians are strongly influenced by Islamic values and cultural practices, such as gotong royong (mutual cooperation). In Islam, environmental volunteering is a religious demand (Kayikci, 2019;Yamin, 2019). However, the relationship between philanthropy, including environmental volunteerism, with religious factors is still under-studied (Zemo & Nigus, 2021). Thus, religious values should be considered to understand the value of environmental volunteerism. Seligman (2011) proposes PERMA's theory in determining the well-being of environmental volunteers: positive emotion, engagement, relationship, meaning, and achievement. One's perceived well-being can affect the intention to continue engaging in environmental volunteering activities. According to Omoto and Snyder (1995), the motivation to sustain engagement as an environmental vol- According to Torkar & Bogner (2019), an individual with egoistic values will be more engaged in pro-environmental activities for their benefit. Among the benefits of these activities are learning new skills, improving the personality, improving self-confidence, preparing for face-to-face in the career world, getting new acquaintances, as well as reducing stress and emotional stress (Holdsworth & Brewis, 2014;Hustinx et al., 2010;Wuthnow, 1998;Binder & Blankenberg, 2016). However, egoistic values have a short-term effect after achieving one's personal goals compared to other values of volunteerism (Torkar & Bogner, 2019).
Biospheric values significantly predict environmental-related behaviour (Steg & De Groot, 2012). These values also influence an individual's intention to en- Involvement in volunteering mostly spurs from altruism or an intention to do good to others. According to Batson, Ahmad, and Tsang (2002), altruism motivates one to improve others' well-being. Altruism also refers to engaging in one action without expecting external rewards. Although altruism reflects selflessness and not expecting rewards, it could lead to intangible benefits such as higher self-esteem and the satisfaction of being able to do things for the universal good. Altruism is driven by social values such as wanting to help the local community, a sense of responsibility to the community, expanding the community of environmental volunteers, and benefits for future generations (Rahman et al., 2021;Schwartz, 2012 Taniguchi (2006) found that full-time working women have more time constraints to engage in volunteer activities than men. Taniguchi and Marshall (2014) also found that women spend more time caring for and supporting their family and social circle than the wider community. Therefore, women need greater environmental support by organising environmental volunteer activities by local representatives, environmental campaigns, and environmental education. With the right support, women with high pro-environmental attitudes are more likely to engage in pro-environmental behaviour (Vicente-Molina et al.,

2018).
A study by Hassan et al. (2010) found a high pro-environmental attitude among science (biology) students compared to non-science stream students. Heyl et al. (2013) argued that such difference in students' attitudes is because students in the science stream are more exposed to environment-related studies and information, which affect their attitude and behaviour towards the environment.
Meanwhile, Tuncer (2008) found no difference between the attitudes towards sus-

Research Methodology
This study aims to examine the value of environmental volunteerism among university students. Data were collected through a survey involving 357 university students involved in environmental volunteerism activities in the Klang Valley region of Malaysia. This study focuses on university students in the youth category because youths play a significant role and importance in the development of society and the country. According to Nesbit (2017), youths are more likely to engage in volunteering activities than older people. Students or youths act as leaders and agents of change who should participate in environmental conservation equally (Mcdougle et al., 2015). In Section B, the respondents must choose their answer based on a 5-points Likert scale, ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). Examples of items from the questionnaire are shown in Table 2.

Validity and Reliability
Two experts in environmental education and environmental conservation reviewed the questionnaire to determine its validity and reliability. The completed questionnaire was distributed to five environmental volunteers to ensure its face validity, and the respondents could understand each item. The findings showed that all five respondents understood the items in the questionnaire.
A pilot study involving 36 environmental volunteers was conducted in September 2020. The Cronbach Alfa value for the environmental volunteerism values is 0.60, as shown in Table 3. As mentioned in Hair et al. (2010), the questionnaire's

Data Analysis Procedure
The data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics comprise a frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation to determine the level of environmental volunteerism value among university students. The mean scores were interpreted based on Nunnally (1997), as shown below (Table 4). Inferential analysis, i.e., t-test, was used to examine the differences in the value of environmental volunteerism across gender. Meanwhile, differences between students from science and non-science students were determined using one-way ANOVA. The data were analysed using SPSS version 23 software.

Findings
The  women. The mean score shows that the religious value among females (mean = 4.576) is higher than that of male students (mean = 4.506). The effect size for this section is 0.112, or 11.2%, indicating a moderate effect size in the difference in religious values between male and female students. A summary of findings is shown in Table 6.

Stream
The findings of the one-way ANOVA analysis shown in Table 7 indicate Lastly, for religious values, there is a significant difference between the students group from the Pure Science study stream (mean = 4.621) with students from the Professional study stream (mean = 4.281), Social Science stream students group (mean= 4.684) with students from the Professional study stream (mean = 4.281), and students group from the Islamic studies stream (mean= 4.709) with students from the Professional study stream (mean = 4.281), with p > 0.05. The mean score shows that students from the Islamic Studies, Pure Science, and Social Sciences streams have higher religious values than students from the Professional study stream. The summary of the findings is shown in Table 8.

Discussion
This study found that environmental volunteerism value among university students is at a "High" level. The findings also showed that all four aspects of values examined (egoistic, biospheric, altruistic, and religious values) are at a "high" level. Based on the overall mean percentage, religious values obtained the highest   Past studies found that altruistic and biospheric values have a long-term influence on individuals' involvement as environmental volunteers. In contrast, egoistic value has a short-term influence on engagement as an environmental volunteer (Torkar & Bogner, 2019). A study by Rachmatullaha et al. (2019) found that the egoistic value of respondents in developing countries such as Indonesia is higher than those in developed countries like Korea. This is likely to occur as people are more likely to put their needs first over the needs of the environment. In this regard, students have their own goals of engaging in environmental volunteering activities, such as forming positive emotions, for a fu-  (Molsher & Townsend, 2016;Rusk & Water, 2015;Faletehan et al., 2020). Therefore, environmental education through environmental volunteerism should focus on the student's goals to sustain their involvement as environmental volunteers.
The overall value of volunteerism comparison between male youth and women found that no difference existed between male youth and women. This finding contradicts the findings by Boeve-de Pauw et al. (2014), which found that women show higher pro-environmental values than Male. Nevertheless, Piyapong's (2019) findings show that males have environmental value and are more likely to engage in environmental activities at a higher level than women. The differences in these findings were influenced by environmental factors such as workload, family commitment, and knowledge of environmental issues (Levine & Strube, 2012;Piyapong, 2019). A more detailed analysis found that Male students had higher egoistic values than women. This is because egoistic values such as achievement and power are important factors for males to engage in environmental-related behaviour (Lan et al., 2010). However, Bhattacharyya (2016) found that female students focus more on egoistic values that are purely achievement than male students. This is in line with the role played by Male and female students and is physically and biologically appropriate based on gender.
Differences also occur in religious values in which women show higher religious values than Male. According to Kayikci (2020), women are more committed to applying religious and social values to volunteer activities. At the same time, the biospheric and altruistic values have no significant differences between Male youth and women. Nevertheless, Dzialo (2017) and Stöckert and Bogner (2020) found that women with high biosphere values are more likely to preserve and value the environment and have a higher sense of responsibility for the en-  (Bhattacharyya & Rahman, 2020).
Students of different streams of study also showed the difference of environmental volunteerism values orientation. This is related to the commitment given by students in line with their field of study. A study by San & Azman (2011) found differences between groups of students from the Pure Science, Social Science, and Professional studies stream based on a commitment to the environment. Students from the Social Science stream have the highest environmental commitment level compared to those from pure Science and Professional studies streams. However, students from the environmental stream (Social Science) have a high environmental awareness (Samsudin & Iksan, 2015). While Zain et al. (2015) found that students from the engineering stream (Professional) have a high level of concern and awareness of environmental care.
According to Piyapong (2019), students in the Pure Science stream focus  (Kyriakopoulos et al., 2020). Goldman et al. (2015) found that individuals with education in the environment and environmental-related subjects such as in pure Science and Social Science streams are more likely to engage in environmental-related activities.
Students from the Islamic Education stream, on the other hand, focus more on volunteer activities related to claims to suit the nature of their field.
Youths from the Islamic Studies and Social Science streams intention to sustain their engagement as higher environmental volunteers than youths from the Professional study stream. However, this contradicts the findings by Christian et al. (2018), which found no significant differences between the stream of Science studies and the non-Science stream on participation in pro-environmental activities. Students who are often involved in outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, nature walks, fishing, and picnicking as recreational activities are more likely to engage in environmental volunteer activities (Christian et al., 2018). The experience in this activity prompted them to engage in pro-environmental activities after a relationship with the environment. For Professional stream students, such as Business courses, there is a challenge to apply environmental management elements in their subject of study (Jabbour et al., 2013).
The difference in the stream of study requires that the curriculum of courses related to environmental education be reviewed for improvement by diversifying topics or activities as well as projects involving community and experience-based learning (Boca & Saraçlı, 2019;San & Azman, 2011). Strengthening environmental volunteer activities by organising activities at high learning institutes allows students to interact directly with the environment and society (Boca & Saraçlı, 2019). This can also assist students in gaining knowledge and skills in environmental conservation as well as assisting in environmental conservation.

Conclusion
This study contributes to the body of knowledge in environmental volunteerism Values identified as the driving force for students' involvement in environmental volunteerism should be emphasised to increase students' interest in participating in environmental volunteering programmes. As religious values are highest among students involved as environmental volunteers, environmental volunteering programmes must integrate elements of religion and spirituality.
Environmental education through environmental volunteerism should emphasise fostering environmental values. In this regard, education for the environment needs to be more emphasised on students than education about and in the environment, which students can directly apply to their actions. Each university should establish an environmental volunteering club that is open to all regardless of gender and study stream. This could provide support to environmental volunteerism and as creating student norms. The norms at the university make students more willing to engage in environmental volunteering activities when they graduate. This study has implications for the content and policies related to environmental education at the university level.
It is proposed that future studies extend their data collection to include interviews and observations of students' involvement in environmental volunteering to understand how environmental volunteerism values affect and sustain their intention to become environmental volunteers. This could address the limitations in data collection in this study, where data were collected during the pandemic, which had restricted environmental volunteering programmes. It is hoped that this study could guide organizers of environmental volunteering programmes in increasing students' interest in participating in group environmental conservation programmes.