Browsing by Author "Smit, Hendrik Adolf Petrus"

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    Military environmental literacy in the South African Army
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12) Smit, Hendrik Adolf Petrus; Van der Merwe, J. H.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Geography & Environmental Studies.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Traditional military activities, such as fighting wars are inherently destructive. Modern militaries undertake a diverse range of military activities; use large areas for military training and operational purposes; and they are confronted by a global focus on environmentally responsible behaviour. These conditions compel militaries to ensure that soldiers display the correct attitude toward, behaviour in and knowledge about the diverse physical, social and cultural environments they occupy and impact upon. In South Africa this is not only a moral obligation but a legal imperative too. The aim of this research is to determine the military environmental literacy (MEL) (attitude, behaviour and knowledge regarding the environment in which the military operate) of the members of the South African Army (SA Army). To reach this aim, existing environmental questionnaires were evaluated to ascertain their suitability for use in a SA Army context. None of them was usable to effectively gauge MEL in a SA Army context. Consequently, an iterative process was initiated to develop a tailor-made, valid, reliable and organisation-specific questionnaire to assess MEL in a SA Army context. The resulting questionnaire comprises a covering letter elucidating the study, a section with 15 attitude items and a section with 13 items related to reported behaviour, both employing a 5-point Likert-type scale. A third section has 14 multiple choice items to test the environmental knowledge of respondents. The three sections form the subscales of the questionnaire to measure the three components of MEL. Six open-ended questions constituted a fourth section in which respondents are required to answer questions and motivate their answers. The final section aims to elicit soldier biographical and service history information. A letter of consent that had to be filled in and signed by each respondent, accompanied the questionnaire. A stratified sample was procured from the nine different formations of the SA Army. During the procurement of the stratified sample the correct percentages of possible respondents, based on the size of formations as well as the rank and gender proportions, was ensured. Twenty-five units situated throughout South Africa were selected. Of the 1203 questionnaires distributed to the units, 1090 usable questionnaires were returned. The returned questionnaires were scanned and the data was extracted using Formware software. The database was analysed using the Lisrel 8.8 program. Analysis of variance was done for the variables and Fisher’s least significant difference post hoc tests were performed for instances where the data rendered significant differences. Pearson correlation coefficients were Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za iv calculated to analyse the continuous data. The qualitative data was analysed using content analysis to investigate the military environmental narrative. The main products of the research are an organisation-specific, valid and reliable questionnaire to assess MEL in a SA Army context and a baseline for MEL in the SA Army and its nine formations. For all three components of MEL attitude (mean of 1.8 on a five-point Likert scale), behaviour (mean of 1.8) and knowledge (mean of 65%) respondents recorded high scores. The composite MEL of 75% denotes a high level of MEL for soldiers of the SA Army. Attitude, behaviour and knowledge scores were recorded for rank, gender, age, time employed in the South African DOD, deployment experience, home language, exposure to environmental positions in the Army, environmental and geography education and level of general education. The correlation between the components revealed that the strongest correlation exists between attitude and behaviour (r = 0.56) with knowledge and attitude second (r = 0.35) and knowledge and behaviour (r = 0.29) third. These results are supported by those of the qualitative analysis. The main recommendation is that the findings should be used to enhance the quality of environmental education and training in the SA Army through the Environmental Services subdivision which is responsible for environmental education and training in the SA Army.