@conference{
author = "Blagdanić, Sanja and Marušić Jablanović, Milica and Đorđević, Dragana and Gundogan, Dragana and Joseph Marcinkowski, Thomas and Županec, Vera",
year = "2024",
abstract = "Contribution
According to the Environmental Performance Index that estimates climate change performance, environmental health and ecosystem vitality, Serbia takes rank 79 out of 180 countries (Wolf et al., 2022). Environmentally irresponsible behavior in Serbia is demonstrated both at the individual and institutional level (uncontrolled crops burning, lack of waste water treatment, using low quality coal and oil derivatives for power plants and individual heating systems, unsanitary landfills, massive deforestation etc.) and requests urgent changes of practice and finding solutions. Several authors underline the role of environmental education in raising awareness and changing behavior of young generations (Coyle, 2005). The main goal of environmental education is creating environmentally literate citizens, capable for lifelong learning (Coyle, 2005). “The environmentally literate citizen, let us imagine, will have a blend of ecological sensitivity, moral maturity and informed awareness of natural processes that would make her or him unlikely to contribute to further degradation of natural processes at either individual or corporate levels. This is an ideal, for it would never be expected that all citizens could really attain such competence” (Brennan, 1994: 5).
The concept of the environmental literacy has been widely theoretically used and empirically tested (Marcinkowski & Reid, 2019; Negev, et al., 2008; Nastoulas, Marini &Skanavis, 2017). According to Simmons (1995), Wilke (1995), and others (e.g., McBride et al. 2013), environmental literacy encompasses: ecological and environmental knowledge, awareness of environmental problems, cognitive skills for analyzing environmental problems as well as proposed solutions or actions, and manifesting pro-ecological behavior which, all together, can help decrease environmental impact and increase participation in social activities intended to protect the environment at the individual and household levels (Negev, et al., 2008; Stern, 2000). Our study relies on the methodological framework developed for the purpose of national testing of environmental literacy in the USA (McBeth et al., 2008) that measures environmental literacy through four components and their subcomponents: (1) ecological knowledge, (2) environmental affect (verbal commitment, environmental sensitivity and environmental feelings), (3) actual commitment (pro-environmental behavior) and (4) cognitive skills (identification of environmental problems, analysis of the environmental problems and action planning). The study is a result of the project Environmental Identity of Primary School Students in Serbia, which aims to investigate environmental literacy and the environmental identity among the students of final grades of primary school (13-15 years old). The purpose of this paper was to summarize the results of analyses which sought to determine whether the components of ecological knowledge, environmental affect and cognitive skills could predict pro-environmental behavior of the students.
Method
The sample (N=877) was stratified according to the regions of the country and the type of the settlement (urban/rural). It consisted of seventh-grade students (aged 13-14), with boys and girls equally represented. The data were collected after obtaining the Ethics Committees approvals, and the consents of the schools' principals, parents and the participants themselves. For the measurement of the Environmental literacy components, the Middle School Students’ Environmental Literacy Survey or MSELS (McBeth & Volk, 2010; Hungerford& Peyton, 1980; Stern, 2000) was applied, which has been utilized in different cultures, after the USA national study (McBeth et al., 2008). The Instrument consists of: (a) questions on demographic characteristics; (b) a multiple choice test of ecological knowledge; (c) two scales, one pertaining to environmental sensitivity (feelings towards and activities in nature) and one to willingness to participate/act, each of which were measured using a 5-pointLikert-type environmental affect scale; (d) a multiple choice test of cognitive skills; and (e) a self-reported behavior scale (referring to saving resources, recycling, communication regarding environment etc) which also was measured using a 5-point Likert-type scale. The cognitive skills tasks include descriptions of real-life situations and demand: the identification of the problems described, the identification of the values contained in the stories of the actors, offering their perspective on the environmental problems, and the identification of the best strategies for solving the problem presented. In order to prevent missing data due to participants’ fatigue, the order of the tasks was changed. The cognitive skills tasks were placed after the knowledge test. The four components of the environmental literacy (knowledge, cognitive skills, affect, behavior) have the same weight, with the maximal value 60. The overall literacy score is obtained by adding the component scores, leading to the maximal environmental literacy score of 240. The instrument was addressed personally by the researchers, and the students needed 60 to 75 minutes to fill in all sections. To identify the extent to which ecological knowledge, environmental affect and cognitive skills were predictive of pro-environmental behavior, a regression analysis was applied. In order to determine if the suspected mediating role of the affect is significant, we have applied the Sobel test.
Expected Outcomes
The results indicate that ecological knowledge covered by school curricula has a negligible power in predicting affect (0.5%) and statistically insignificant power in predicting behavior. Nevrtheless, these results should be interpreted cautiously, and further study would be needed to determine if, when, and how students make use of their knowledge when preparing for and/or taking specific any action(s) in real-world situations. Cognitive skills were a weak predictor of affect (3% of variance explained) and an insufficient predictor of behavior (1.4%). However, when environmental affect was introduced into the regression model as an independent variable, cognitive skills lose the ability to predict behavior and the complete predictive power (54%) belongs to affect. The mediating role of affect was confirmed using a Sobel test. It can be interpreted that even if certain cognitive skills are developed, a change in the way children feel about nature seems necessary, as this appears to help create a level of affective readiness for environmental learning in and out of school, community engagement, and changes in behavior in private and public settings. Regarding the affect prediction, when both knowledge and cognitive skills are added as predictors, the observed small predictive power (2.9%) belongs to cognitive skills only. The assumed relationship is bidirectional. These results draw attention to curricular goals, which largely emphasize the cognitive dimension of environmental literacy (especially knowledge), and neglect affective dimension, while expecting a change in the behavior in the population of students in school and after they graduate. These results are consistent with those reported in similar studies (e.g., McBeth et al. 2014). We assume that providing opportunities for outdoor learning, research in the surrounding nature, engaging in local environmental activities, planting a school garden and personal contact with damaged nature site could facilitate establishing positive environmental affect and the corresponding pro-environmental behavior.
References
Brennan, A. (1994). Environmental Literacy and Educational Ideal, Environmental Values, 3 (1) :3-16. Coyle, K. (2005). Environmental Literacy in America. Washington, DC: The National Environmental Education and Training Foundation. Hungerford, H.& Peyton, R. (1980). A paradigm for citizen responsibility: Environmental action. In A. Sacks, et al. (Eds.), Current Issues VI: The Yearbook of Environmental Education and Environmental Studies (pp. 146-154),Columbus, OH: ERIC/SMEAC. Marcinkowski, T.& Reid, A. (2019). Reviews of research on the attitude–behavior relationship and their implications for future environmental education research. Environmental Education Research, 25(4), 459-471. McBeth, W., Hungerford, H., Marcinkowski, T., Volk, T., & Meyers, R. (2008). National Environmental Literacy Assessment Project: Year 1, National baseline study of middle grades students. Final report. McBeth, W, Marcinkowski, T, Giannoulis, C., Hungerford, H., Volk, T., and Howell, J. (2014). Secondary analysis of the National Environmental Literacy Assessment: Phase I and II student, teacher, program and school surveys. McBeth, W., & Volk, T. L. (2009). The national environmental literacy project: A baseline study of middle grade students in the United States. The Journal of Environmental Education, 41(1), 55-67. McBride, B, Brewer, C., Berkowitz, A., &Borrie, W. (2013). Environmental literacy, ecological literacy, and ecoliteracy: What do we mean and how did we get here? Ecosphere, 4(5), 1-20. Nastoulas, I., Marini, K. &Skanavis, C. (2017). Middle school students environmental literacy assessment inThessaloniki, Greece. In: Anwar, S., El Sergany, M. & Ankit, A. (Eds.). Health and Environment Conference Proceedings (198–209). Dubai: Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University. Negev, M., Sagy, G., Garb, Y., Salzberg, A. & Tal, A. (2008) Evaluating the Environmental Literacy of Israeli Elementary and High School Students, The Journal of Environmental Education,39:2, 3-20. Simmons, D. (1995). Developing a framework for national environmental education standards [Working paper]. In D. Simmons (Ed.), The NAAEE standards project: Papers on the development of environmental education standards (pp. 9–58). Troy, OH: North American Association for Environmental Education. Stern, P. (2000). Toward a coherent theory of environmentally significant behavior. Journal of Social Issues, 56(3), 407-424. Wilke, R. (Ed.). (1995). Environmental Education Literacy/Needs Assessment Project: Assessing environmental literacy of students and environmental education needs of teachers; Final Report for 1993-1995. Stevens Point, WI: University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. Wolf, M. J., Emerson, J. W., Esty, D. C., de Sherbinin, A., Wendling, Z. A., et al. (2022). 2022 Environmental Performance Index. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy. epi.yale.edu",
publisher = "Germany : European Educational Research Association",
journal = "ECER",
title = "Ecological Knowledge, Environmental Cognitive Skills and Affect in Predicting Pro-environmental Behavior among 7th Grade Students",
url = "https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_ipir_1130"
}
