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Bloom’s taxonomy.

Background Information | The Original Taxonomy | The Revised Taxonomy | Why Use Bloom’s Taxonomy? | Further Information

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Background Information

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl published a framework for categorizing educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives . Familiarly known as Bloom’s Taxonomy , this framework has been applied by generations of K-12 teachers and college instructors in their teaching.

The framework elaborated by Bloom and his collaborators consisted of six major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The categories after Knowledge were presented as “skills and abilities,” with the understanding that knowledge was the necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice.

While each category contained subcategories, all lying along a continuum from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, the taxonomy is popularly remembered according to the six main categories.

The Original Taxonomy (1956)

Here are the authors’ brief explanations of these main categories in from the appendix of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ( Handbook One , pp. 201-207):

• Knowledge “involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting.”
• Comprehension “refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual knows what is being communicated and can make use of the material or idea being communicated without necessarily relating it to other material or seeing its fullest implications.”
• Application refers to the “use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations.”
• Analysis represents the “breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements or parts such that the relative hierarchy of ideas is made clear and/or the relations between ideas expressed are made explicit.”
• Synthesis involves the “putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole.”
• Evaluation engenders “judgments about the value of material and methods for given purposes.”

The 1984 edition of Handbook One is available in the CFT Library in Calhoun 116. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

Barbara Gross Davis, in the “Asking Questions” chapter of Tools for Teaching , also provides examples of questions corresponding to the six categories. This chapter is not available in the online version of the book, but Tools for Teaching is available in the CFT Library. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

The Revised Taxonomy (2001)

A group of cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists published in 2001 a revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy with the title A Taxonomy for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment . This title draws attention away from the somewhat static notion of “educational objectives” (in Bloom’s original title) and points to a more dynamic conception of classification.

The authors of the revised taxonomy underscore this dynamism, using verbs and gerunds to label their categories and subcategories (rather than the nouns of the original taxonomy). These “action words” describe the cognitive processes by which thinkers encounter and work with knowledge:

• Recognizing
• Interpreting
• Exemplifying
• Classifying
• Summarizing
• Implementing
• Differentiating
• Attributing

In the revised taxonomy, knowledge is at the basis of these six cognitive processes, but its authors created a separate taxonomy of the types of knowledge used in cognition:

• Knowledge of terminology
• Knowledge of specific details and elements
• Knowledge of classifications and categories
• Knowledge of principles and generalizations
• Knowledge of theories, models, and structures
• Knowledge of subject-specific skills and algorithms
• Knowledge of subject-specific techniques and methods
• Knowledge of criteria for determining when to use appropriate procedures
• Strategic Knowledge
• Knowledge about cognitive tasks, including appropriate contextual and conditional knowledge
• Self-knowledge

Mary Forehand from the University of Georgia provides a guide to the revised version giving a brief summary of the revised taxonomy and a helpful table of the six cognitive processes and four types of knowledge.

Why Use Bloom’s Taxonomy?

The authors of the revised taxonomy suggest a multi-layered answer to this question, to which the author of this teaching guide has added some clarifying points:

• Objectives (learning goals) are important to establish in a pedagogical interchange so that teachers and students alike understand the purpose of that interchange.
• Organizing objectives helps to clarify objectives for themselves and for students.
• “plan and deliver appropriate instruction”;
• “design valid assessment tasks and strategies”;and
• “ensure that instruction and assessment are aligned with the objectives.”

Citations are from A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives .

Further Information

Section III of A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives , entitled “The Taxonomy in Use,” provides over 150 pages of examples of applications of the taxonomy. Although these examples are from the K-12 setting, they are easily adaptable to the university setting.

Section IV, “The Taxonomy in Perspective,” provides information about 19 alternative frameworks to Bloom’s Taxonomy, and discusses the relationship of these alternative frameworks to the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.

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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

• Choosing a Title
• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Reading Research Effectively
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Applying Critical Thinking
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Research Process Video Series
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• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
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• Evaluating Sources
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• Tiertiary Sources
• Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Insiderness
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Writing Concisely
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
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The title summarizes the main idea or ideas of your study. A good title contains the fewest possible words needed to adequately describe the content and/or purpose of your research paper.

Importance of Choosing a Good Title

The title is the part of a paper that is read the most, and it is usually read first . It is, therefore, the most important element that defines the research study. With this in mind, avoid the following when creating a title:

• If the title is too long, this usually indicates there are too many unnecessary words. Avoid language, such as, "A Study to Investigate the...," or "An Examination of the...." These phrases are obvious and generally superfluous unless they are necessary to covey the scope, intent, or type of a study.
• On the other hand, a title which is too short often uses words which are too broad and, thus, does not tell the reader what is being studied. For example, a paper with the title, "African Politics" is so non-specific the title could be the title of a book and so ambiguous that it could refer to anything associated with politics in Africa. A good title should provide information about the focus and/or scope of your research study.
• In academic writing, catchy phrases or non-specific language may be used, but only if it's within the context of the study [e.g., "Fair and Impartial Jury--Catch as Catch Can"]. However, in most cases, you should avoid including words or phrases that do not help the reader understand the purpose of your paper.
• Academic writing is a serious and deliberate endeavor. Avoid using humorous or clever journalistic styles of phrasing when creating the title to your paper. Journalistic headlines often use emotional adjectives [e.g., incredible, amazing, effortless] to highlight a problem experienced by the reader or use "trigger words" or interrogative words like how, what, when, or why to persuade people to read the article or click on a link. These approaches are viewed as counter-productive in academic writing. A reader does not need clever or humorous titles to catch their attention because the act of reading research is assumed to be deliberate based on a desire to learn and improve understanding of the problem. In addition, a humorous title can merely detract from the seriousness and authority of your research. 
• Unlike everywhere else in a college-level social sciences research paper [except when using direct quotes in the text], titles do not have to adhere to rigid grammatical or stylistic standards. For example, it could be appropriate to begin a title with a coordinating conjunction [i.e., and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet] if it makes sense to do so and does not detract from the purpose of the study [e.g., "Yet Another Look at Mutual Fund Tournaments"] or beginning the title with an inflected form of a verb such as those ending in -ing [e.g., "Assessing the Political Landscape: Structure, Cognition, and Power in Organizations"].

Appiah, Kingsley Richard et al. “Structural Organisation of Research Article Titles: A Comparative Study of Titles of Business, Gynaecology and Law.” Advances in Language and Literary Studies 10 (2019); Hartley James. “To Attract or to Inform: What are Titles for?” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 35 (2005): 203-213; Jaakkola, Maarit. “Journalistic Writing and Style.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication . Jon F. Nussbaum, editor. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018): https://oxfordre.com/communication.

Structure and Writing Style

The following parameters can be used to help you formulate a suitable research paper title:

• The purpose of the research
• The scope of the research
• The narrative tone of the paper [typically defined by the type of the research]
• The methods used to study the problem

The initial aim of a title is to capture the reader’s attention and to highlight the research problem under investigation.

Create a Working Title Typically, the final title you submit to your professor is created after the research is complete so that the title accurately captures what has been done . The working title should be developed early in the research process because it can help anchor the focus of the study in much the same way the research problem does. Referring back to the working title can help you reorient yourself back to the main purpose of the study if you find yourself drifting off on a tangent while writing. The Final Title Effective titles in research papers have several characteristics that reflect general principles of academic writing.

• Indicate accurately the subject and scope of the study,
• Rarely use abbreviations or acronyms unless they are commonly known,
• Use words that create a positive impression and stimulate reader interest,
• Use current nomenclature from the field of study,
• Identify key variables, both dependent and independent,
• Reveal how the paper will be organized,
• Suggest a relationship between variables which supports the major hypothesis,
• Is limited to 5 to 15 substantive words,
• Does not include redundant phrasing, such as, "A Study of," "An Analysis of" or similar constructions,
• Takes the form of a question or declarative statement,
• If you use a quote as part of the title, the source of the quote is cited [usually using an asterisk and footnote],
• Use correct grammar and capitalization with all first words and last words capitalized, including the first word of a subtitle. All nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs that appear between the first and last words of the title are also capitalized, and
• Rarely uses an exclamation mark at the end of the title.

The Subtitle Subtitles are frequently used in social sciences research papers because it helps the reader understand the scope of the study in relation to how it was designed to address the research problem. Think about what type of subtitle listed below reflects the overall approach to your study and whether you believe a subtitle is needed to emphasize the investigative parameters of your research.

1.  Explains or provides additional context , e.g., "Linguistic Ethnography and the Study of Welfare Institutions as a Flow of Social Practices: The Case of Residential Child Care Institutions as Paradoxical Institutions." [Palomares, Manuel and David Poveda.  Text & Talk: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse and Communication Studies 30 (January 2010): 193-212]

2.  Adds substance to a literary, provocative, or imaginative title or quote , e.g., "Listen to What I Say, Not How I Vote": Congressional Support for the President in Washington and at Home." [Grose, Christian R. and Keesha M. Middlemass. Social Science Quarterly 91 (March 2010): 143-167]

3.  Qualifies the geographic scope of the research , e.g., "The Geopolitics of the Eastern Border of the European Union: The Case of Romania-Moldova-Ukraine." [Marcu, Silvia. Geopolitics 14 (August 2009): 409-432]

4.  Qualifies the temporal scope of the research , e.g., "A Comparison of the Progressive Era and the Depression Years: Societal Influences on Predictions of the Future of the Library, 1895-1940." [Grossman, Hal B. Libraries & the Cultural Record 46 (2011): 102-128]

5.  Focuses on investigating the ideas, theories, or work of a particular individual , e.g., "A Deliberative Conception of Politics: How Francesco Saverio Merlino Related Anarchy and Democracy." [La Torre, Massimo. Sociologia del Diritto 28 (January 2001): 75 - 98]

6.  Identifies the methodology used , e.g. "Student Activism of the 1960s Revisited: A Multivariate Analysis Research Note." [Aron, William S. Social Forces 52 (March 1974): 408-414]

7.  Defines the overarching technique for analyzing the research problem , e.g., "Explaining Territorial Change in Federal Democracies: A Comparative Historical Institutionalist Approach." [ Tillin, Louise. Political Studies 63 (August 2015): 626-641.

With these examples in mind, think about what type of subtitle reflects the overall approach to your study. This will help the reader understand the scope of the study in relation to how it was designed to address the research problem.

Anstey, A. “Writing Style: What's in a Title?” British Journal of Dermatology 170 (May 2014): 1003-1004; Balch, Tucker. How to Compose a Title for Your Research Paper. Augmented Trader blog. School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech University; Bavdekar, Sandeep B. “Formulating the Right Title for a Research Article.” Journal of Association of Physicians of India 64 (February 2016); Choosing the Proper Research Paper Titles. AplusReports.com, 2007-2012; Eva, Kevin W. “Titles, Abstracts, and Authors.” In How to Write a Paper . George M. Hall, editor. 5th edition. (Oxford: John Wiley and Sons, 2013), pp. 33-41; Hartley James. “To Attract or to Inform: What are Titles for?” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 35 (2005): 203-213; General Format. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Kerkut G.A. “Choosing a Title for a Paper.” Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Physiology 74 (1983): 1; “Tempting Titles.” In Stylish Academic Writing . Helen Sword, editor. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), pp. 63-75; Nundy, Samiran, et al. “How to Choose a Title?” In How to Practice Academic Medicine and Publish from Developing Countries? A Practical Guide . Edited by Samiran Nundy, Atul Kakar, and Zulfiqar A. Bhutta. (Springer Singapore, 2022), pp. 185-192.

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Employee onboarding: a case study on implementing Productive24 at Agata S.A.

Successfully introducing employees to a company’s structure is essential for their performance and commitment. In large organizations, planning and executing effective onboarding can be particularly challenging. How did Agata S.A. address onboarding automation?

Remote employee onboarding in large enterprise

Onboarding is crucial for an organization’s functioning and has garnered significant attention among HR specialists. However, there is a lack of detailed analysis on how market leaders are improving their recruitment processes. This case study explores the digitization of employee onboarding at Agata S.A.

Agata S. A. systematically recruits and onboards hundreds of new candidates every year. As the chain is developing rapidly at some point, it was necessary to introduce a modern solution for digital employee onboarding. However, given the organization’s specific needs, the ready-made solutions available on the market did not meet its expectations. Thus, the company digitized its processes using a tailor-made solution built on the Productive24 platform.

Sebastian Harupa IT Deputy Director Agata S.A.

The primary challenge was mapping the multi-level dependencies within the company’s structure and the resulting user rights. The flexibility of the Productive24 platform was invaluable, allowing for a faithful replication of Agata S.A.’s processes.

Tangible benefits.

Automating the onboarding processes with Productive24 significantly optimized efficiency, increasing it by 65% on the buddies’ side. This is just one of the many benefits of the project. What improvements were made to onboarding in the Agata store chain? Find the answers in our case study!

In the case study, you will learn about:

• The needs of Agata S.A. : discover the main challenges that the company faced if it came to employee onboarding and how they were able to tackle them.
• Employee onboarding automation: how with the aid of the Productive24 platform the company achieved onboarding automation.
• Employee training and development: understand the L&D elements implemented to create a solid communication and development platform for employees.
• The successful implementation of the Productive24 platform: Find out why the implementation of Productive24 was a success for Agata S.A., bringing numerous benefits such as increased efficiency and better data security.

Download the case study and explore the capabilities of the low-code Productive24 platform. Discover how modern technology can transform processes in your company!

For more background on the implementation, read our interview with Sebastian Harupa and Magdalena Krawczyk (Senior HR Projects Specialist at Agata S.A). The interview focuses on Agata S.A.’s approach to digitizing its unique processes and supporting new employees through tailored onboarding.

Get your copy today!

For more information, please visit: Digital employee onboarding at Agata S.A. retail chain

Jolanta Kozak

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Article Contents

1 introduction, 2 case study: shunde polytechnic, 3 methodology, 4 results and discussion, 5 conclusions, acknowledgements, author contributions.

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Study on the effects of low-carbon education on the carbon emissions of college students: a case study in Guangdong Province

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Zhang Junting, Lyu Shun, Chen Zefeng, Study on the effects of low-carbon education on the carbon emissions of college students: a case study in Guangdong Province, International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies , Volume 19, 2024, Pages 1425–1431, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijlct/ctae097

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College students are the main force in low-carbon society and social governance, and therefore, their awareness of low-carbon is of vital importance. This article indicates a case study about the effects of low-carbon education on the carbon emissions of college students. In 2019, low-carbon education was promoted on the campus of Shunde Polytechnic and questionnaire survey and interview method were used to study the carbon emissions and low-carbon behaviors of college students after 3 years. Based on the results, the carbon emissions of college students in the aspects of food and daily use accounted for 53.8% and 40.8%, respectively, of the total carbon emissions. In the aspect of food, wine and staple foods accounted for a higher proportion. Their per capital carbon emissions were 291.536 kg and 454.651 kg, respectively. The main contributor to daily use was laptops, which emitted 530.351 kg of carbon per capital. The carbon emissions of clothing, housing, and transportation were relatively low. It is found that low-carbon facilities and measures and low-carbon living environments in colleges have a very positive effect on the reduction of carbon emissions of college students. But the disunity between knowing and doing is still common among college students. Therefore, further measures must be taken to improve the situation.

Over the past decades, China’s economy has achieved rapid development, accompanied by the increasing consumption of fossil energy such as oil and coal. In this process, the ecological environment has suffered serious damage, such as global warming, sea level rise, and many other hazards [ 1 ]. These problems are contrary to the direction of realizing sustainable economic and social development.

According to the latest analysis data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), China has become the largest carbon emitter. In 2021, China’s carbon dioxide emissions exceeded 12.9 billion tons, accounting for 33% of the global total and twice that of the USA. According to the China Energy Big Data Report (2022), China’s coal consumption in 2021 was 4.87 billion tons, an increase of 4% year-on-year, and coal accounted for 47.7% of the total energy consumption, which is related to the coal-dominated energy consumption structure in China [ 2 ]. In the long run, the traditional energy production and consumption structure is not sustainable, and the damage caused to the ecological environment is irreversible. In this case, many countries begin to attach importance to low-carbon economies and use various fiscal and tax policies to promote the development of low-carbon economies. The development of low-carbon economy has become a new direction for China’s economic transformation [ 3 ].

In light of its economic development, the Chinese government has proposed to build and improve a green, low-carbon, and circular economic system and achieve the commitment of “carbon peak” by 2030 and “carbon neutrality” by 2060 at an early date. In October 2021, the Chinese government proposed to establish a green and low carbon development economic system and promote the transformation of economic and social development to green and low carbon, which is the long-term strategy to realize sustainable development [ 4 ].

College students are important driving forces for environmental protection and sustainable development. Their understanding of the environment will determine the development trend of social environment and ecology in the future. Improving their environmental literacy has become a strategic task for the whole society. As a special group, college students have strong plasticity and influence [ 5 ]. On the one hand, there are still high carbon behaviors in college students’ living habits, but based on their plasticity. It is feasible to study and analyze college students’ behaviors and give them correct guidance. On the other hand, the behavioral concept of college students can produce a demonstration effect, which has a strong social radiation effect. Therefore, improving the low-carbon literacy of college students is an important aspect of accelerating the formation of low-carbon environmental protection lifestyle and consumption mode in the public, which is conducive to the formation of a low energy, low consumption, and low-expenditure lifestyle in the whole society and promoting the construction of ecological civilization [ 6 ].

Low-carbon work has gradually shifted from the macro perspective to individual lifestyle carbon emissions. Shui and Dowlatabadi [ 7 ] propose the consumer lifestyle model law to explore the impact of consumer lifestyle on the environment in 2005. In 2006, Britain’s environment minister proposed a personal carbon cap [ 8 ]. Rahman et al. [ 9 ] introduced the Carbon Footprint Calculator app in 2009 as a basis for dynamically tracking individual carbon footprints. In 2009, Riddell et al . [ 10 ] estimated that college students each produced nearly 4 t carbon emissions per year. In 2013, Larsen et al. [ 11 ] calculated the carbon footprint of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology by applying the environment extended I/O model, showing that the average student contribution to carbon emissions was 4.6 t/a.

The current research on college students’ carbon emissions mainly focuses on four aspects: (i) The analysis of college students’ carbon footprint and the research on emission reduction measures. Yixin et al. ’s research [ 12 ] shows that the carbon emissions of college students in Beijing have different proportions in different aspects of clothing, food, housing, and transportation; (ii) Research on low carbon lifestyle of college students. Zeguang et al . [ 13 ] studied the cognition and practice of low carbon consumption among college students and pointed out that college students should establish a correct consumption concept, put forward a series of measures to practice low carbon lifestyle and (iii) explore the relevant influencing factors of college students’ low-carbon consumption behavior. Ma Xiaoxu’s research [ 14 ] shows that environmental responsibility awareness, environmental impact concern, and low carbon concern have a significant impact on college students’ low carbon consumption intention; (iv) Research on college students’ low-carbon life education. Xin and Zhendong’s research [ 15 ] shows that low-carbon life education aims to cultivate low-carbon values, develop ecological morality, establish a correct view of nature, and disseminate low-carbon ideas, popularize low-carbon knowledge, develop low-carbon behavior content, and cultivate group and individual autonomy and consciousness of low-carbon life. In a word, the current research on college students’ carbon emissions shows multiangle and multilevel development, which has guiding significance for the research in this article.

In this article, a college in Guangdong, China was taken as a case study, which lasted for 3 years (from 2019 to 2022). In this study, the students’ carbon emission behavior was firstly investigated and suggestions for carbon reduction at campus were given, and the college adopted several measures of low-carbon education to improve the students’ carbon emission behavior, then an investigation was conducted again to know the students carbon footprints. By comparing the results before and after college’s activity, the effects of low-carbon education could be fully understood, and effective suggestion could also be provided. The investigation and research in this article not only grasp an important aspect of college students’ culture, moral quality, and sense of mission but also have important academic value and extensive social significance.

Shunde Polytechnic is a public college in Guangdong Province which is located in the south China. According to the statistical data for the year 2022, the campus covers an area of 1.2 million m 2 , with a construction area of more than 600 000 m 2 . It has 11 secondary colleges and 53 majors, with a total of 16 000 full-time students, 2781 adult education students, and 1086 faculty and staff members.

Figure 1 shows the CO 2 emission of university students from different countries compared to other countries. The Chinese students have much smaller CO 2 emission. But there is still space for CO 2 emission reduction among the Chinese university students. In order to better understand the students’ carbon footprints, a survey has been conducted in Shunde Polytechnic to investigate the students’ energy behavior in 2019. Figure 2 shows the composition of students’ energy consumption. It can be seen that students consume more electricity in dorms and research building, and the electricity in these two places can easily be affected by students’ behavior.

The CO 2 emission of university students from different countries [ 16 ].

The composition of students’ energy consumption in 2019.

To further reduce the CO 2 emission of students at Shunde Polytechnic, the college proposed several low-carbon education measures, e.g. low-carbon seminar, poster, low-carbon behavior evaluation, etc. After 3 years of adjustment, a carbon footprint investigation was conducted again to obtain an in-depth understanding on the effects of low-carbon education on the carbon footprint of college students, and corresponding measures for further carbon reduction were proposed based on the research.

3.1 Carbon emission calculation

At present, there are two authoritative methods for the calculation of carbon emissions, one is from a macro perspective, and the other is from a micro perspective. For the calculation from the macro perspective, the guidance document is mainly based on the ‘National Greenhouse Gas Inventory’ guidelines issued by the United Nations. In the calculation of carbon emissions, it is necessary to first classify carbon emission sources and establish a subset until all carbon emission sources are covered. For the calculation from the micro perspective, the most critical step is to calculate the carbon emission factor of different products, obtain the unit carbon emission of the product, and obtain the total carbon emissions. In this article, the calculation method from the bottom to the top microlevel is used to determine the carbon emission factors and calculate the total carbon emission. The expression is as follows:

where CE is the carbon emissions of a certain lifestyle; A x means the activity level of one detail in the lifestyle; and EF x refers to the carbon emission factor of one detail in the lifestyle. The carbon emission factors of different items are shown in Table 1 .

Carbon emission factors [ 17 ] .

3.2 Data collection

This research follows three basic principles: the combination of theoretical analysis and practice, the combination of qualitative analysis and quantitative research, and interdisciplinary research. In terms of specific methods of data collection, it mainly adopts the literature analysis method, questionnaire survey method, and interview method.

(1) Literature analysis  

The literature analysis method is a theoretical method of modern science and technology research, that deeply consults, analyzes, and sorts out the scientific data of the literature of related things and uses it to find the physical nature and scientific attributes of related things. In terms of this research, literature related to carbon emission assessment, low carbon environmental protection education for college students, and low carbon environmental protection social governance was collected and sorted out, and some relevant literature was reviewed.

(2) Questionnaire survey  

Questionnaire survey is a research method that collects relevant information by asking questions in written form. Students from a college in Guangdong, China were selected as key respondents and totally 1200 students were investigated randomly by questionnaires and 1097 valid questionnaires were collected. Considering the impact of age and gender on the research results, the age and gender of the respondents are both generally equally distributed.

The purpose of the questionnaire survey was to understand the low-carbon environmental awareness and behavior of college students, and the survey object was mainly college students. The students who participated in the survey were freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior, accounting for 22.17%, 23.22%, 33.48%, and 21.13%, respectively. Among the students who participated in this questionnaire survey, male students accounted for 49.5% of the total number, while female students accounted for 50.5%. From this data, it can be seen that the students participating in the survey come from different genders and grades, and the questionnaire had certain rationality.

The questionnaire mainly consisted of two parts. The first part was about carbon emissions of college students. From the aspects of clothing, food, housing, transportation, daily use, and environmental protection behavior, the differences in carbon emission behavior of college students were analyzed from four aspects: consumption characteristics, individual characteristics, consciousness characteristics and behavior characteristics. The main influencing factors of carbon emission were found. The detailed contents information of this part of questionnaire is shown in Table 2 . The second part of the questionnaire was about environmental protection awareness, attitude to low-carbon living, low-carbon education in college, and importance of low-carbon education for social governance. The main aim of this part was to obtain an in-depth understanding of students’ environmental protection behavior.

(3) Interview  

Detailed contents of different aspects in the questionnaire .

The interview method mainly refers to a method of collecting other relevant resources and literature in a purposeful, reasonable, and systematic way, in which the investigator conducts oral conversations with other respondents and asks them about their feelings or views about the phenomenon in a specific time or situation. In this actual research, the authors first prepared an interview outline on the basis of fully understanding the research content, and then conducted in-depth interviews with college students, college teachers, and social personnel. The interview could help the authors to gain a well understanding of the status of low-carbon education among college students from a more comprehensive perspective and help us further understand the importance of low carbon education for the development of students and social governance. Finally, the interview results are helpful to provide reasonable suggestions for further improvement of low-carbon education for college students.

4.1 Preliminary statistics of questionnaire survey

Data observed from the questionnaire were firstly collected and analyzed. It can be observed from the data that from the aspect of water usage, the number of college students taking a shower less than 100 minutes per week accounted for 66.5%, 100–200 minutes accounted for 26.8%, and more than 200 minutes accounted for 6.7%. Most students used water for a reasonable time, but there were some students who used water for a long time, resulting in a waste of resources. The electricity in the dormitory was limited by the objective conditions of the dormitory, which were basically limited to lighting electricity and low-power electrical appliances, and the most important high-power electrical facilities were air conditioners. In this respect, carbon emissions have not changed significantly from before.

According to public statistics, the carbon emissions of private transportation in China show an increasing trend year by year. Among public transportation, taxis account for the largest proportion of carbon emissions. The survey found that more than 86.2% of college students chose low-carbon emission transportation modes, such as buses and bicycles, when traveling. Due to the reasons of COVID-19, most college students only had activities near the college, and even if they need to travel, the travel time was short. In terms of the choice of travelling tools, most college students were more inclined to choose public transportation, so the carbon emissions caused by traveling are relatively small.

In terms of the use of disposable tableware, 55.6% of the students used disposable tableware between 0 and 20 times per week, and the carbon emissions generated by disposable tableware accounted for 48.3% of the survey group. More than 42.2% of students used disposable tableware more than 20 times a week, accounting for a high proportion, indicating that there was a large space for improving students’ low-carbon awareness.

4.2 Carbon emission structure analysis

According to the data obtained from the survey, the selection of main activity data in the analysis is introduced: The quantity of clothing purchased and the laundry behavior will have a great impact on the carbon emissions of clothing. In the aspect of clothing, the excessive carbon emission was obvious, so the quantity of clothing and the amount of laundry detergent were selected as the main factors affecting clothing. The amount of food has an important impact on carbon emissions. In terms of food, staple food, auxiliary food, and daily consumption of fruit, milk, wine, and tobacco were selected as the measurement criteria. Water resources are widely used in the life of college students, and the resulting carbon emissions cannot be underestimated. Therefore, the water that college students frequently use in daily life was selected for consideration. For daily consumption products, express delivery, plastic bags, disposable chopsticks, laptops, and paper products that had a greater impact on carbon emissions were selected for analysis. In terms of transportation, the variables of subway, bus, taxi, electric vehicle, and bicycle were selected for analysis. Through the above analysis, the numerical characteristics of carbon emissions from students’ life in Shunde Polytechnic can be found, and the distribution of carbon emissions from the investigated objects can be better reflected.

According to the analysis results for each variable, it can be seen that the distribution basically conforms to the sampling requirements. The total carbon emission of college students at Shunde Polytechnic was 18201.72 kg, of which the per capital carbon emission of clothing, food, housing, transportation, and daily use were 819.08, 9592.31, 91.01, 418.64, and 7280.69 kg, respectively.

The proportions of carbon emissions from different aspects of college students are shown in Fig. 3 . It can be seen that the life carbon emissions of college students at Shunde Polytechnic are mainly concentrated in the aspects of food and daily use, with the total proportion of about 94%. Carbon emissions from food occupy the first place in all aspects of life. The shares of carbon emissions from different food types in colleges are shown in Fig. 4 , among them, vegetables, eggs, fruits, milk, meat, tobacco, drinks, staple food, and other carbon emissions accounted for 0.19%, 2.16%, 0.32%, 1.86%, 21.44%, 1.07%, 28.49%, and 44.47% of the food carbon emissions, respectively. Alcohol and staple foods accounted for 72.96% of food’s total carbon emissions. It can be seen that the unreasonable diet structure of students in Shunde Polytechnic was very serious, and there were generally bad habits such as picky eating and drinking drinks. In this aspect, there is a large space for carbon emission reduction. From the perspective of per capital carbon emissions of specific behaviors, carbon emissions from clothing purchased during the school year accounted for a relatively large proportion in the aspect of clothing, whose per capital carbon emissions are 40.597 kg. In terms of food, drinks and staple foods occupied a relatively large proportion of carbon emissions (291.536 kg and 454.651 kg, respectively). In the daily use aspect, which accounted for a relatively large of carbon emissions was the laptop with a per capital carbon emissions as high as 530.351 kg, plastic bags released less carbon emissions with a per capital carbon emissions of only 0.0002 kg. It can be seen that most of the college students have a healthy and good living habits. In terms of transportation, the carbon emission is relatively small due to the influence of COVID-19 in recent years. The proportion of carbon emissions from food and daily use is closely related to the higher education environment received by college students, but there is still a large part of the room for emission reduction.

Carbon emission of college students from different aspects.

The shares of carbon emissions from different food types in colleges.

In terms of environmental behavior, students at Shunde Polytechnic are analyzed in four aspects: waste clothing disposal method, daily traveling method, meal surplus, and disposable container use. Among them, 15.4% of students chose to discard their old clothing, 23.4% chose to donate them, 5.6% chose others, and 55.6% chose to leave them idle. Among the daily travel modes, 82.4% of college students choose walking, 7.1% choose electric vehicles, 6.8% choose bicycles, 1.4% choose buses, and nearly 1.0% choose taxis, rail transit, and motor vehicles. 57.9% of students have little surplus, 37.9% have little surplus, and 4.2% have a lot of surplus. In terms of takeaway containers, 61.2% of college students used plastic bags, 27.9% used disposable plastic cutlery, 0.9% used paper bags, and 10.0% used self-catering cutlery.

According to the results of relevant analysis, 68.1% of college students in Foshan choose to discard or idle old clothing, indicating that college students still have not completed the effective use of clothing in the disposal of old clothing. In terms of daily travel, 89.2% of college students chose walking and cycling to travel, indicating that the students possess low-carbon behavior in traveling. In terms of meal leftovers, 95.8% of college students have little leftovers, and their overall behavior is good. In terms of disposable container, 89.1% of college students choose to use plastic bags and disposable plastic tableware. The main reason is that most students give priority to the convenience of take-out food, resulting in the lack of environmental protection behavior.

4.3 Low-carbon awareness analysis

In the following research, the authors investigated the low-carbon awareness of college students by questionnaires, and the main results are presented and discussed in this part.

In the respondents, 42% of the students think that individuals play a very large role in low-carbon process, while 48% of the students think individuals play a relatively large role. However, there are still 10% of the students think that individuals play no role in low-carbon process. As to whether they pay attention to the news about environmental protection and carbon reduction, 26% of the students answered often, 62% chose occasionally, and 12% never pay attention to the news about environmental protection. This shows that college students’ attention to low-carbon issues needs to be strengthened.

About the understanding level of the concept of low carbon and environmental protection, 58.60% of the students knew roughly the meaning and content, 25.15% of the students were familiar with the meaning and content, 12.12% of the students had heard but did not know the meaning, and 4.13% of the students had never heard. Only nearly 25% of students are familiar with the content and meaning of ‘low-carbon and environmental protection’, which is worth our deep thought. The college, government, and relevant groups should strengthen the publicity of the concept of ‘low-carbon environmental protection’ in colleges. Only by letting more people know this knowledge, we can achieve low-carbon environmental protection better.

What are the main channels through which college students learn about the concept of low carbon and environmental protection? According to the survey data, it is mainly through the Internet, accounting for 79.8%. In fact, this channel also reflects the contemporary college students contact with the Internet for lots of time. Most of the time is with computers and mobile phones. 55.6% of college students learn about it through TV and radio. The rest of the students learn mainly through newspapers, magazines, and other channels. Therefore, if colleges and relevant government departments want to increase the spread of the concept of low carbon and environmental protection among college students, releasing this knowledge on the Internet can be a good means of publicity.

In terms of students’ attitude toward low-carbon and environmental protection, we designed ‘Do you think the promotion and practice of low carbon and environmental protection are closely related to college students?’. According to the statistics, 66.70% of the students think it is relevant, college students are the main force in environmental protection; 9.09% of the students think it is irrelevant and think it is the government’s business; 24.21% of the students are not clear. It can be seen from this set of data that most students hold a positive attitude toward it, believing that the promotion of ‘low carbon and environmental protection’ is related to themselves. For those students whose attitude is not clear or negative, they should be guided positively and improve their understanding.

4.4 Interview analysis

To understand the status of low-carbon education in colleges, several college students and tutors were interviewed. The main aim of the interview was to collect the low-carbon activities and measures in colleges and suggestions from college students and tutors.

In terms of low-carbon activities and measures in colleges, about 55% interviewees thought it was not enough. The colleges put more attention on professional education, but less on low-carbon education as the main job of colleges is to solve the employment problem of students. Based on the interview of tutors, they were not forced to add low-carbon education to their courses because they had heavy teaching tasks. Besides, only little college associations are about low-carbon environmental protections, thus the opportunities for tutors and students to participate in low-carbon environmental activities are very limited, resulting in limited low-carbon propagandizing and popularizing.

Low-carbon living environment in colleges should be further built. For example, several students mentioned that they had limited methods to dispose waste cloths, based on previous questionnaire. 68.1% of college students choose to discard or idle old clothing. Based on the interview, the interviewees indicated that the handling facilities were not enough, and they had no way to sell or donate their clothes even they wished to. In the canteens, disposable plastic food container, cutlery, and plastic bags usually severed to students due to the severe take-out demand, but unfortunately, most of the students would not bring their own food containers. Furthermore, the canteens usually interfere with students’ meal choices very little, even the students waste much food, they do not need to take responsibility for your actions.

Last but not least, the disunity of knowing and doing is very common among college students. For example, nearly all the students know that the disposable cutlery has negative effects on the low-carbon process and environmental protection, 61.2% of college students will use plastic bags and 27.9% use disposable plastic cutlery because of the convenience and low cost of disposable cutlery. When questioned ‘would you support the ban on using disposable cutlery and plastic bags in the college canteen’, only 56% of the interviewees support it, which showed that there is still a distance between having environmental awareness and actually taking action to protect the environment.

4.5 Suggestions

Based on the research, several suggestions are proposed for the promotion of low-carbon education in colleges.

Firstly, we will promote the improvement of college students’ environmental literacy and normalize environmental science popularization. Specifically, measures can be taken from the following two aspects. Firstly, national environmental protection education, the annual ‘World Environment Day’, ‘National Tree Planting Week’, and other special activity days are used to organize various forms of activities to promote environmental protection. Secondly, it is necessary to create an environment protection atmosphere in the whole society and to guide young people to take an active part in environmental protection activities such as planting trees. Besides, it is urgent to improve and strengthen the organization of large-scale voluntary activities, as well as the training, incentive, guarantee, feedback, and supervision mechanism of volunteers.

Secondly, various activities should be taken to enhance public environmental awareness. First, public courses on environmental protection should be offered. Colleges and universities should set up courses related to ecological and environmental protection to improve the cognitive ability of environmental protection of college students and actively guide them to establish scientific ecological and environmental awareness. Second, various forms of environmental protection activities should be organized. By organizing environmental protection activities, college students can understand the importance of keeping the environment clean and maintaining the balance of the ecological environment and develop the good habit of protecting the environment. Thirdly, research on environmental protection should be encouraged. Colleges and universities can organize students to carry out research on environmental protection topics, so that students can ask questions, decide the direction of research, collect and sort out data, draw conclusions, and take social actions in the process of implementing project plans. By doing environmental protection research, the students’ environmental awareness could be improved.

Thirdly, students themselves should learn more about low-carbon life and eliminate the behavior of comparison and waste. From the perspective of the school, it is necessary to create a good low-carbon environment, provide students with low-carbon life as far as possible, and integrate low-carbon into their daily life.

Based on the collection and collation of 1097 valid questionnaires, this article conducted an in-depth exploration of different aspects of college students’ carbon emissions in Shunde Polytechnic. Based on the research, the following conclusions can be drawn:

(1) The carbon emissions of college students in the aspects of food and daily use accounted for 53.8% and 40.8%, relatively in the total carbon emissions. In the aspect of food, wine and staple food accounted for a higher proportion. Their per capital carbon emissions are 291. 536 kg and 454.651 kg, respectively. The main contributor to daily use is laptops, which emit 530.351 kg of carbon per capital.

(2) The carbon emissions of clothing, housing, and transportation are relatively low, respectively, accounting for 3.3%, 0.3%, and 1.8% of the total carbon emissions.

(3) It is found that the low-carbon facilities and measures and low-carbon living environments in colleges have a very positive effect on the reduction of carbon footprint of college students. But the disunity of knowing and doing is still common among college students. Therefore, further measures must be taken to improve the situation.

The authors would appreciate The Plan of Philosophy and Social Science of Guangdong Province 2023 Annual Discipline Co-Constructive Project (Project No. GD23XGL121), 2023 Young Innovative Talent Category of Colleges and Universities in Guangdong Province (Project No. 2023WQNCX255), Special Funds for the Cultivation of 2023 Guangdong College Students’ Scientific and Technological Innovation. (‘Climbing Program’ Special Funds Project No.pdjh2023b1077).

Junting Zhang (Formal analysis [equal], Investigation [equal], Methodology [equal]), Shun Lyu (CRediT contribution not specified), Shun Lyu (Conceptualization [lead], Funding acquisition [lead], Resources [lead], Supervision [lead]), Chen Zefeng (Data curation [equal], Software [equal], Validation [equal]).

None declared.

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Application of ambient noise tomography to coastal granite islands: A case study of Wuzhizhou Island in Hainan, China

• Published: 08 June 2024

Cite this article

• Cheng Huang 1 , 2 ,
• Sheng Liu 2 ,
• Jun-Qiao Long 1 ,
• Chang-Rong Zhang 3 ,
• Bo Xiao 1 ,
• Da-Cheng Wang 1 ,
• Cheng-Long Wei 1 ,
• Rui Wang 1 ,
• Xuan Hu 1 ,
• Zhuo Xin 1 ,
• Xiu-Ji Meng 4 &
• Jing-Feng Xing 1  

Islands are valuable land resources in the ocean, and their detailed subsurface seismic velocity structures are highly important for underground space utilization, engineering construction, and geological disaster prevention. Ambient noise tomography and the horizontal–vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) method use ambient noise recordings instead of earthquake signals to study the underground velocity structure, making them easy to implement on islands and consequently becoming potential optimization schemes for the investigation of detailed island structures. However, the application of these technologies to small granite islands along coasts is relatively insufficient, and the applicability needs to be further verified. This study ambient noise tomography and HVSR analysis were carried out by using a dense array of seismic data on Wuzhizhou Island, Hainan. It was found that natural activities mainly cause the ambient noise below 8 Hz on Wuzhizhou Island. Moreover, high-quality noise cross-correlation functions of 3–8 Hz can be extracted. The results of ambient noise tomography and HVSR analysis show that the underground S-wave velocity structure and sedimentary characteristics of Wuzhizhou Island are coupled with its topography. The high-terrain area of Wuzhizhou Island exhibits low-velocity anomalies, where a sedimentary layer did not develop. On the other hand, the low-terrain area of Wuzhizhou Island exhibits high-velocity anomalies, where a thin Quaternary sedimentary layer developed. These results imply that subsurface magmatic activity controls the island topography and affects the distribution of the island sedimentary layer. This study successfully verifies the feasibility of detection methods based on ambient noise in small granite islands along the coast. It also provides key basic information for studying the geological evolutionary history, island spatial planning, and geological disaster prevention of Wuzhizhou Island.

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Haikou Marine Geological Survey Center, China Geological Survey, Haikou, 571127, China

Cheng Huang, Jun-Qiao Long, Bo Xiao, Da-Cheng Wang, Cheng-Long Wei, Rui Wang, Li Yan, Xuan Hu, Zhuo Xin & Jing-Feng Xing

Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, China

Cheng Huang & Sheng Liu

South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China

Chang-Rong Zhang

Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

Xiu-Ji Meng

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Correspondence to Sheng Liu .

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This work was supported by the geological survey project (Grant No. DD20220992; Grant No. DD20242841; Grant No. DD20230592 and Grant No. DD20220993); Innovation Foundation of Science and Technology for “Nanhai New Star” Projects (Grant No. NHXXRCXM202353) of Hainan province.

Huang Cheng , Senior engineer, received a Master’s degree in Mineralogy, Petrology and Mineral Deposits from China University of Geosciences ( Beijing ) in 2014. From 2020 to 2024, he studied as an in-service doctoral student at Ocean University of China. At present, he works in Haikou Marine Geological Survey Center of China Geological Survey, mainly engaged in the investigation and research of marine basic geology, marine resources and environment, island geology and so on.

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Huang, C., Liu, S., Long, JQ. et al. Application of ambient noise tomography to coastal granite islands: A case study of Wuzhizhou Island in Hainan, China. Appl. Geophys. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11770-024-1108-5

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Received : 20 January 2024

Revised : 22 May 2024

Published : 08 June 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11770-024-1108-5

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Capital Structure Decision-Making Process in DFIS: A Case Study

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Working Papers

The focus of the paper was on understanding the process of capital structure management of development finance institutions (DFIs) using the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India as a case study. The results indicate that the development of the capital structure pattern of the ICICI has not been systematic. It is also shown that the capital structure of a DFIs greatly influences its investment decisions. The recommendations made are: (a) to lift, at least, partially the restriction on lending rate of DFIs; (b) to convert the government loans to DFIs into equity; (c) DFIs should use the cost of capital concept to improve the quality of their appraisal procedure.

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