Attitude and willingness of biodiversity conservation in Chinese university students: Associated factors and the mediation of social support

model to understand community behaviors which related to COVID-19 pandemic [7]. In recent years, the KAP theory has also been proved highly applicable to environmental conser- vation and management studies [8]. However, for Chinese university students, although the KAP theory had been adopted in investigating marine environment pollution, ecotourism, and pro-environmental behavior [9–11], no published studies have ever thoroughly discussed biodiversity conservation of Chinese university students by using the KAP model. Among the three stages covered by the KAP theory, knowledge acquiring is comparatively easier, therefore, finding associated factors of attitude shaping and practice implementing are crucial. Social support is an important concept in the field of positive psychology. It refers to the perception and actuality that one has cared for, has assistance from other people [12]. In a medical study published in 2016, the authors found that social support significantly influenced the association between attitude and practice in medical decision making [13], another Indo- nesian study suggested that perceived social support probably moderated the relationship between the attitude of becoming a social entrepreneur and social entrepreneurial intention [14]. Therefore, it is likely that perceived social support may play a role in the association between attitude and practice of biodiversity conservation, however, this hypothesis has not been tested. In the current study, aiming to address the deficiencies in the field, by surveying a large

sample of Chinese university students, we intend to explore associated factors of attitude and willingness to practice in biodiversity conservation. Moreover, we analyzed the possible medi- ation of perceived social support in the association between biodiversity attitude and willing- ness to practice. 2. Methodology 2.1 Study design A cross-sectional survey was conducted in February 2023 in Southwest Forestry University, Yunnan Province, China. We adopted a stratified random clustering sampling method which proportionate to sample size to choose study subjects: all registered students in this university were firstly stratified into different layers by their affiliated school, grade, and major; then, within each layer, according to precalculated proportion in the final sample size, several clus- ters (classes of students) were randomly chosen. We used formula for simple random sampling to calculate for preliminary required sample size: as no previously published studies have reported estimated prevalence of attitude or practice for biodiversity conservation in college students, we set it as the most conservative 50%, statistical significance set as 0.05, acceptable error set was no more than 15%, we yielded a sample size of 1112. Considering that the sam- pling error of simple clustering sampling will be inevitably larger than simple random sam- pling, we further adopted a design effect of 1.2 to adjust for the calculated sample size, and the final reached required sample size was 1335. 2.2 Data collection

We used a self-developed questionnaire to collect relevant information from the survey partici- pants. This questionnaire is a comprehensive tool comprised of multiple modules, measuring demographics, social support, biodiversity conservation attitude and willing to practice, envi- ronmental protection awareness, etc. All questionnaires were self-administered by the respon- dents, who had been gathered in patches in a classroom, and sat separately, upon completion, quality control personnels deployed at site will check for completeness and quality of filled questionnaires. The Epidata (Version 4.2) software was used for data management, double entry was performed to guarantee data inputting quality. Prior to survey, a pre-survey of 120 PLOS ONE Attitude and willingness of bio-conservation in Chinese university students PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307510 July 19, 2024 2 / 9 Xingdian Talent Support Plan young talent project (XDYC-QNRC-2022-0207). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.