Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors Among Jeju Islanders, South Korea - Island Futures: Conservation and Development Across the Asia-Pacific Region - page 112

using a quota sampling method based on gender, age, and residential area in
proportion to the size of population. The 2007 Statistical Yearbook published by Jeju
Provincial Government was used for selecting the 500 quota samples. Ten sociology
students conducted the fieldwork in June 2007 using a face-to-face interview with a
structured questionnaire covering independent variables and scales for measuring
consumerism, environmentalism, and environmental behavior as described below.
Independent Variables
Six independent variables covering demographic and socio-economic backgrounds
were used: gender, age, educational attainment, residential area, monthly income,
religion, and level of civic engagement. Age was categorized into five groups:
20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, and 60 and over. Residential area was categorized into
urban and rural areas. Educational attainment had four categories: primary school,
middle school, high school, and university. Monthly income was measured on a
four-point scale in US dollars: <USD 999, USD 1,000-1,999 dollars, USD 2,000-
2,999 dollars, and >USD 3,000. Religion was categorized as none, Buddhism,
Christianity, and other.
Civic engagement was defined as people's involvement in civic society (Chang
2004 : 71). Civic engagement was operationalized from civic activities in which the
respondent engaged in the previous 5 years. Five items were used for measuring the
level of civic engagement on the basis of a “yes-no” scale (Chang 2004 : 71): writing
about any issue to a newspaper, contacting members of parliament about any issue,
signing a petition on any issue, joining a specific campaign or organization concerning
environmental or social issues, and attending a meeting about an issue in the local
area. The total number of activities in which interviewees were engaged was calcu-
lated, and two groups were created: the uninvolved and the involved. The involved
group was subdivided into passive and active involvement on the basis of the average
number of activities in which the interviewee had been engaged. Civic engagement
was then categorized as none, passive involvement, and active involvement.
Measurement of Consumerism, Environmentalism,
and Environmental Behavior
Consumerism was measured by using a system developed by Mullins et al. ( 2004 ).
In this system, consumerism is measured by 18 question items, using a five-point
Likert scale, ranging from 'Strongly agree' (5) to 'Strongly disagree' (1).
As identified in Table 9.2 , for some question items, a higher score indicates a
higher level of consumerism; while for others, a higher score indicates a lower level
of consumerism.