Towards Acquiring Pro-environmental Attitudes Through Environmental Education

Author(s):

Franz Bogner(presenting / submitting)Anne Liefländer

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

30 SES 09, ESE Learning through Innovative Teaching

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-04

11:00-12:30

Room:

B119 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

William Scott

Contribution

Enhancing pro-environmental attitudes through education is an important but inevitably slow process (Bogner, 1998). According to Piaget’s developmental theory, the age groups ‘7 to 11’ and ’11 and older’ fall into different developmental stages, the ‘concrete operational stage’ and the ‘formal operational stage’. Within this context, we aimed to compare the two stages according to their environmental attitudes and a possible enhancement of attitudes through participation in environmental education. The four-day programme at an educational field centre for 9-10 and 11-13 year old pupils was assessed with the dimensions preservation (P) and utilization (U) of the 2-MEV model (Bogner & Wiseman, 2006) in a pre-, post-, retention test design. We found, our younger pupils held more pro-environmental attitudes than the older ones before programme participation (P: t = 4.90, df = 265, p< .001, r = .29; U: t = -2.14, df = 265, p = .033, r = .13) and the attitudes of the younger pupils also enhanced stronger through programme participation (P: F (1, 577) = 88.58, p< .001; U: F (1, 577) = 22.82, p < .001). We could not detect differences between male and female pupils, neither for the younger nor for the older pupils. Concluding, educational programmes may enhance environmental attitudes regardless of pupils sex, though more effective (or faster) in younger pupils.

Method

We developed an environmental education program on ‘water in life – life in water’. This four-day project took place at a school field centre in Bavaria, Germany. The time schedule assured that each participating class underwent the same activities, structure, and time frame. The program covered various cognitive and affective as well as formal and informal aspects aimed at improving students' environmental attitudes and knowledge along with the students’ relationship to nature. Our sample consisted of 138 grade 4 pupils and 55 grade 6 pupils from 11 classes. The age of the younger group was 9-10 years (M ± SD = 9.82 ± 0.53) and of the older group 11-13 years (M ± SD = 11.93 ± 0.50). The gender distribution was 47.8% female in the younger and 43.6% female in the older group. (Data of an external control group will not be shown as no changes were discovered). We used a German version of the 2-MEV scale and reduced the original 20 items to eight items for Preservation and eight for Utilisation (Bogner & Wiseman, 2006). The term pro-environmental is used for people who agree with Preservation and disagree with Utilisation items on a 5-point Likert scale. Questionnaires were distributed in a pre-, post- and retention test design: the pre-test (T0) was filled in two weeks before, the post-test (T1) directly after and the retention test (T2) four to six weeks after program participation. We use test differences to describe a short-term (T0 to T1), long-term (T0 to T2) and persistency effect (T1 to T2) of the program. For significant differences we also specify an effect size r: .10 small, .30 medium, and .50 a large effect size.

Expected Outcomes

The existing environmental attitudes at T0- differ significantly between the younger and the older participants with the younger holding higher pro-environmental attitudes than the older pupils in Preservation (t = 4.90, df = 265, p < .001, r = .29) and Utilisation (t = -2.14, df = 265, p = .033, r = .13). The program positively affected our younger students in their preservation and utilization preference over the short-term and long-term. However, only the improvement in the Preservation dimension persisted after the program, while the improvement in the Utilization dimension significantly decreased. Significant effects were also seen for the older students' Preservation dimension; however, the effects persisted just over the short term with a medium effect size. We detect no changes in the Utilisation dimension for the older students. Regarding differences in the effect of the programme on sex, we find male and female pupils to be without distinction (Preservation: F (3, 187) = 0.80, p = .498; Utilization: F (3, 187) = 0.80, p = .498).

References

Bogner, F. (1998). The influence of short-term outdoor ecology education on long-term variables of environmental perspective. The Journal of Environmental Education, 29(4), 17–29. Bogner, F.X. & Wiseman, M. (2006). Adolescents’ attitudes towards nature and environment: Quantifying the 2-MEV model. The Environmentalist, 26(4), 247–254. Johnson, B. & Manoli, C.C. (2011). The 2-MEV scale in the United States: A measure of children's environmental attitudes based on the theory of ecological attitude. The Journal of Environmental Education, 42(2), 84–97. Liefländer, A. K. & Bogner, F. X. (2013). The effects of children’s age and gender on acquiring pro-environmental attitudes through environmental education. The Journal of Environmental Education (submitted). Milfont, T. L. & Duckitt, J. (2004). The structure of environmental attitudes: A first- and second-order confirmatory factor analysis. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24(3), 289–303. Oerke, B. & Bogner, F. (2011). Social desirability, environmental attitudes, and general ecological behaviour in children. International Journal of Science Education, 35(5), 713-730. Parra, A. & Oliva, A. (2009). A longitudinal research on the development of emotional autonomy during adolescence. The Spanish Journal of Psychology 12(1), 66–75.

Author Information

Franz Bogner (presenting / submitting)

University of Bayreuth

Biology Education

Bayreuth

Anne Liefländer

University of Bayreuth, Germany

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