Tracking New Zealanders' environmental perceptions: A comparison of responses from two survey approaches

Abstract

By 2010, the Hughey et al. biennial "Public perceptions of New Zealand's Environment" survey had run for a decade. Their survey, built around the PSR (Pressure-State-Response) model of environmental reporting, involved randomly sampling a unique set of 2000 people, aged 18 years and over, from the New Zealand Electoral Roll every two years. Questions have arisen in the literature about how responses and trends from such quasi-panels might differ from ongoing, cohort-based surveying. In the research reported here, we aimed to understand factors underpinning individuals' perceptions of the state of the New Zealand environment, and to investigate what might have given rise to changes, if any, in these perceptions. In order to achieve these aims, respondents from the 2000, 2004 and 2008 biennial surveys were re-sampled and re-surveyed in 2011. Analyses revealed some changes in respondents' perceptions over an extended period of time, but these changes were not statistically significant. This finding indicates that people's responses are, in general, consistent over time, which suggests that some environmental perceptions can be resistant to information and events. The results also help legitimate Hughey et al.'s choice of a randomised longitudinal survey over a panel-based, longitudinal survey. Implications and limitations of the findings are discussed.