Connectedness to nature and sociodemographic variables in Ecuadorian University students

Javier Ávila-Larrea; Adriana Mora Bernal

doi:10.35782/JCPP.2025.1.04

Javier Ávila-Larrea Economist, Professor at the University of Cuenca (Ecuador), Faculty of Psychology. Researcher at the Department of Water Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Cuenca.
Adriana Mora Bernal Lawyer, Professor at the Catholic University of Cuenca (Ecuador), Faculty of Social Sciences. Researcher.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35782/JCPP.2025.1.04

Keywords: connectedness to nature, sociodemographic factors, higher education, environmental psychology, university students

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) and traditional sociodemographic variables---age, sex, place of residence, and socioeconomic status (SES)---among university students, with a focus on the contextual influence of a female-majority academic environment. Utilizing a cross-sectional design, data were collected from 396 psychology students (66% female, 34% male) who were selected via stratified probabilistic sampling. The normality tests (Shapiro-Wilk and Kolmogorov-Smirnov) indicated non-parametric distributions for the CNS, necessitating the implementation of Spearman's correlation, Kruskal-Wallis, and Mann-Whitney U tests. The findings indicated an absence of a statistically significant association between CNS and SES (ρ = -0.023, p = 0.652) or age (ρ = 0.041, p = 0.415).