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SUMMER 2007, VOL. 38, NO. 4 3
REPORTS & RESEARCH
Assessing Children’s Environmental
Worldviews: Modifying and
Validating the New Ecological
Paradigm Scale for Use With
Children
Constantinos C. Manoli, Bruce Johnson, and Riley E. Dunlap
ABSTRACT: The authors revised and validated the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale for use
with upper elementary students. Researchers use the NEP Scale extensively with adults, but it was
not designed for children. Interviews with 5th grade students helped the authors revise the NEP
Scale for use with children. The authors spent 2 years validating the modified instrument with
larger numbers of students. After analyzing their results, the authors suggest that a 3-dimensional
modified NEP Scale for Children, with 10 instead of 15 items and revised wording, is appropriate
for use with children aged 10–12 years.
KEYWORDS: earth education, environmental worldviews, New Ecological Paradigm Scale
rom the late 1960s onward, the growing recognition of the seriousness of environmental
problems led to hundreds of studies of environmental attitudes and beliefs. Yet, because
many of the studies contributing to this literature had not undergone a rigorous develop
-
ment process from a psychometric point of view, only a modest amount of knowledge accumulated
(Dunlap & Jones, 2002; Gray, 1985). Rather than conducting replications with well-established
measures, researchers in the majority of studies used instruments developed for a specific project,
Constintinos C. Manoli is a postdoctoral research coordinator for the Earth Education Research and
Evaluation Team in the Department of Teaching and Teacher Education at The University of Arizona
in Tucson. Bruce Johnson is an associate professor and department head of Teaching and Teacher
Education at The University of Arizona and director of the Earth Education Research and Evaluation
Team. He is also international program coordinator for The Institute for Earth Education. Riley E.
Dunlap is Regents Professor of Sociology at Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater. Copyright ©
2007 Heldref Publications
F
4 THE JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
providing little evidence of their validity and reliability (Gray; Leeming, Dwyer, & Bracken, 1995).
In a major review, Leeming, Dwyer, Porter, and Cobern (1993) examined 34 studies that assessed
changes in environmental attitudes, knowledge, and behavior. They reported finding scales with
limited use beyond the original study and little evidence regarding validity and reliability.
These problems are especially apparent in studying children’s environmental orientations because
few studies have used well-developed instruments. Of all the instruments reviewed by Gray (1985)
and by Dunlap and Jones (2002), not one was designed for children. Leeming et al. (1993) reviewed
several relevant studies but found only one, Armstrong and Impara (1991), that they felt was of high
quality. Leeming et al. (1995) encouraged more research on environmental attitudes and behavior of
children because “early attitudes and knowledge shape the later thinking of adolescents and adults”
(p. 23), and empirical research in the past had underrepresented this population.
In our study, we present an adaptation of the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale for use
with upper elementary students. As an adaptation of the NEP, the most widely used instrument for
studying environmental orientation among adults, our measuring instrument should prove useful for
studying children’s environmental orientations.
Theoretical Perspective: From the Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP) to the NEP
Numerous early analysts of environmental problems argued that Americans’ commitment to
abundance, progress, prosperity, laissez faire, individualism, and property rights have contributed
to environmental problems and posed barriers to the effective solution of such problems (Caldwell,
1970; Campbell & Wade, 1972; Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978; Whisenhunt, 1974). Three decades
ago, Pirages and Ehrlich (1974) pointed out that a new worldview was beginning to challenge the
Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP) consisting of the traditional values, attitudes, and beliefs noted
above. This new social paradigm or worldview, called the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) by
Dunlap and Van Liere (1978) and more recently the New Ecological Paradigm by Dunlap, Van
Liere, Mertig, & Jones (2000), challenges the DSP by rejecting the anthropocentric notion that
nature exists solely to serve human needs (Barbour, 1973; Commoner, 1971; Daly, 1973; Meadows,
Meadows, Randers, & Behrens, 1972). In addition to rejecting the idea that nature has no value
beyond human use, the NEP emphasizes that modern industrial societies are exceeding ecological
limits and disrupting ecosystems (Dunlap & Van Liere).
The new worldview has evolved from early concerns about specific environmental problems
and natural resources to recognizing that humans may be fundamentally altering the functioning
of the global ecosystem, with the result that unpredictable and irreversible changes may occur
(Dunlap et al. 2000). What many once viewed as discrete, local problems have evolved into global
problems with complex, synergistic causes and unpredictable, possibly irreversible effects. As a
result, researchers have made an observable turn toward studying public perceptions and aware-
ness of global ecological problems and the human–environment relationships that produce them
(Dunlap, 1998; Stern, 1992).
Recognition of the importance of examining the relationship between modern societies and the
environments that produced these problems led to the construction of the 12-item NEP Scale as
a means of measuring public acceptance of the emerging paradigm (Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978).
Since then, the NEP Scale has become the most widely used measure of environmental concern
(Stern, Dietz, & Guagnano, 1995), used in scores of studies, including a growing number outside
the United States (Bechtel, Verdugo, & Pinheiro, 1999; Schultz & Zelezny, 1999). Although Dunlap
and Van Liere found that the NEP Scale measured a single dimension, others have found that it
measures two, three, or even four dimensions (Bechtel et al.; Edgell & Nowell, 1989; Furman, 1998;
SUMMER 2007, VOL. 38, NO. 4 5
Gooch, 1995; Noe & Hammitt, 1992; Noe & Snow, 1989, 1990; Roberts & Bacon, 1997; Scott &
Willits, 1994; Shetzer, Stackman, & Moore, 1991).
Researchers recently revised and updated the NEP Scale, renaming it the New Ecological
Paradigm Scale (Dunlap et al., 2000). The revised version contains 15 items, three each designed to
tap five key facets of the NEP: (a) limits to growth, (b) anti-anthropocentrism, (c) fragility of nature’s
balance, (d) rejection of human exemptionalism, and (e) belief in eco-crisis. These facets did not
form distinct dimensions in the original study because Dunlap et al. found one primary dimension
reflecting endorsement of an ecological worldview. The authors suggest, however, that the number
of dimensions may vary for different populations and that “in many cases it will no doubt be more
appropriate to treat the NEP as multidimensional” (Dunlap et al., p. 436).
Purpose of Our Study
Both the original NEP Scale (Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978) and the revised scale (Dunlap et al.,
2000) were designed for use with adults, but many environmental learning programs are designed
for children. Assessing environmental worldviews during childhood is of great interest to both those
offering such programs and researchers investigating the development of these worldviews.
Recently, researchers have developed new instruments designed to measure children’s environ-
mental worldviews, most notably the Children’s Attitudes Toward the Environment Scale (CATES;
Musser & Malkus, 1994) and the Children’s Environmental Attitude and Knowledge Scale
(CHEAKS; Leeming et al., 1995). CATES has not been widely used and employs an awkward
bipolar answer format, whereas CHEAKS assesses attitudes toward environmental issues through
both verbal commitment and self-reported actual behaviors. These instruments measure different
dimensions than NEP Scale.
We designed our study to determine if the revised NEP Scale (Dunlap et al., 2000) was suitable
for use with children ages 10–12 years and, if so, what modifications were necessary for use with this
age group. Our study also investigates whether the belief systems of children, as measured by the
NEP, is unidimensional or multidimensional. If the NEP Scale were applicable to children, research-
ers could (a) investigate children’s environmental worldviews and compare children’s worldviews
with those of adults, using a comparable measure and (b) study how worldviews change as children
become adults.
Method
Revision: Year 1
During the revision phase, from February to April 2003, we examined children’s comprehension
of the NEP Scale through interviews with 30 fifth-grade students (17 girls, 13 boys) from a school
in Pennsylvania, who were participants in Earthkeepers, an earth education program (Van Matre &
Johnson, 1988). Following our first interview with 13 students, which focused on the vocabulary in
the NEP Scale, we revised most of the items to make them more child friendly without changing
their meaning. Next, we used the NEP Scale with the revised items in interviews with 17 other fifth
graders, checking again for understanding of vocabulary but adding a focus on comprehension of
the meaning of the items. On the basis of those interviews, we further revised a few scale items and
tentatively constructed the NEP Scale for Children.
Finally, 54 fifth-grade students (32 girls, 22 boys) from two schools in Arizona and Pennsylvania
completed the revised scale as a pilot test. The students from Arizona were primarily Caucasian and
Hispanic whereas the students from Pennsylvania were mainly Causcasian. The tentative NEP Scale
6 THE JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
for Children contained 15 items and the same 5-point Likert-type scoring system used in the adult
NEP Scale, with responses ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). We reversed the
scoring for negatively worded items: 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). The total scale score
ranged from a possible low of 15 (endorsement of the DSP) to a high of 75 (endorsement of the
NEP). The midpoint score of 45 can be arbitrarily interpreted as neutrality with regard to the two
competing worldviews.
Validation: Year 2
The participants in the first year of the validation phase of the study (September 2003 to
April 2004) were 672 fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students from 23 schools in Louisiana and
Pennsylvania (52% girls, 48% boys). Students from Louisiana were mostly African American and
Caucasian, and students from Pennsylvania were mostly Caucasian. The students had participated
in either Earthkeepers (Van Matre & Johnson, 1988) or Sunship Earth (Van Matre, 1979), two
earth education programs that were part of their school’s curriculum. The schools served students
of low- to middle-income levels. Both programs focus on encouraging participants to develop an
understanding of ecological concepts, build positive feelings for the natural world, and change their
environmental behaviors. Because the authors of the programs designed them to affect students’
worldviews and feelings about the earth, they are appropriate for the purpose of this study. The stu-
dents completed the NEP Scale for Children as a pretest 1 week before they began the earth educa-
tion programs and as a posttest approximately 1 month after completing the programs.
We made a small change in the scale from Year 1, adding a Do not understand response to the
Likert-type scale to enable us to further detect problematic items. At the end of Year 2, we randomly
split the data in two, using one half for exploratory factor analysis (EFA; principal-components
analysis with varimax rotation) and the other half for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; Pedhazur
& Schmelkin, 1991; Tabachnick & Fidell, 1996).
Validation: Year 3
In Year 3 (September 2004 to April 2005), on the basis of the second-year students’ responses, we
slightly revised the NEP Scale for Children one last time. We eliminated items that received a high
rate of the response Do not understand in Year 2. The 515 fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students
(53% girls, 47% boys) involved in the third-year data collection came from the same schools in
Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Arizona and had participated in either Earthkeepers or Sunship Earth.
Using the entire sample, we ran a second CFA to test how well Year 3 data fit the Year 2 model. We
also performed a paired sample t-test analysis with the 186 students who participated in the Sunship
Earth program
1
to validate the scale for its sensitivity to detecting change in children’s environmental
worldviews as a result of program participation.
Results
Revision: Year 1
During the first set of interviews, we identified 36 words as problematic for most of the students.
We replaced those words with easier and more familiar synonyms or short phrases in 13 of the 15
items. During the second set of interviews, only five additional words appeared to be problematic,
and 3 of the 17 students had comprehension problems with two items. After a researcher read those
items aloud, the students seemed to understand them, suggesting that the problem was in reading
rather than understanding. We further revised those two items before including them in the tentative
NEP Scale for Children.
SUMMER 2007, VOL. 38, NO. 4 7
Validation: Year 2
EFA. Using a random half (n = 336) of the Year 2 sample, an unconstrained EFA initially revealed
five factors with Eigenvalues greater than 1.0, explaining 53.68% of the variance. However, several
items loaded almost equally on two different factors. We ran further analyses with different items
deleted each time. The best solution appeared to be one with 11 of the original 15 items arranged
in three factors, explaining 48.6% of the variance (see Table 1). We named the three factors Rights
of Nature, Eco-Crisis, and Human Exemptionalism (factors proposed by Dunlap and colleagues;
Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978; Dunlap et al., 2000), because a majority of the items on each dimen-
sion clearly reflected these facets of an ecological worldview. However, each of the three factors also
includes one item that the NEP authors intended as an indicator of a different facet.
CFA. We conducted a structural equation model (SEM) using AMOS software with the second half
(n = 336) of the sample to test the three-factor, 11-item model resulting from the EFA. In SEM, a
researcher posits a theoretical model, in this case on the basis of results of the EFA, and runs an analy-
sis to see how well the data fit the proposed model. In our study, the data were a good fit to the model
(see Figure 1). Goodness of Fit Index (GFI = .96), Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI = .93), and
Comparative Fit Index (CFI = .90) were at or above the frequently recommended minimum level
of .90. Root Mean Square of Approximation (RMSEA = .05) is better than the often-recommended
TABLE 1. Exploratory Factor Analysis of the 11-Item New Ecological Paradigm
(NEP) Scale for Children in Year 2 (
n = 336)
Factor
Factor Scale items 1 2 3
1. Rights of Nature 7. People are supposed to rule over the rest of nature. .695
1. Plants and animals have as much right as people
to live. .691
4. People must still obey the laws of nature. .640
2. Eco-Crisis 10. If things don’t change, we will have a big disaster
in the environment soon. .707
2. There are too many (or almost too many) people
on earth. .663
8. People are treating nature badly. .733
5. When people mess with nature it has bad results. .459
3. Human 3. People are clever enough to keep from ruining
Exemptionalism the earth. .667
6. Nature is strong enough to handle the bad effects
of our modern lifestyle. .614
9. People will someday know enough about how
nature works to be able to control it. .685
11. The so-called “environmental crisis” facing people
has been blown out of proportion (exaggerated).
a
.497
Note. Loadings of .35 or less are not included in the table. Eigenvalues for the factors are 2.6 (Factor 1), 1.5
(Factor 2), and 1.2 (Factor 3). The percentage of variance for the factors are 17.0 (Factor 1), 16.4 (Factor 2),
and 15.2 (Factor 3). We dropped four items from the scale from the analysis in Year 2.
a
We dropped this item from the Year 3 analysis because many students had trouble understanding it. We have
not included the item in the final version of the NEP Scale for Children.
level of .10 and at the level of .05 suggested by others (e.g., Hu & Bentler, 1999). The results thus
confirm the factor structure revealed in the EFA analysis (see Table 1).
We also examined values indicating the strength of the relationships shown in the model. First,
the values associated with items constituting each of the three factors indicate how well the items
within a factor relate to each other. As shown in Figure 1, items within each of the factors have
parameter estimates in similar ranges. The exception is in the Eco-Crisis factor, in which Item
1 has a parameter estimate that is substantially lower than the others in that factor. Second, the
parameter estimates for the relationships among the three factors show how well the three factors
fit together. In this case, Human Exemptionalism has a substantially lower value than have either
of the other two factors.
Because the original NEP authors suggested that for an adult sample a one-factor model is best
(Dunlap et al., 2000), we also tested a unidimensional model structure. The results, GFI (.91), AGFI
(.87), CFI (.64), and RMSEA (.09), were not as good as the results of the three-factor model. Thus,
it appears that the three-factor model is more appropriate for these students. The fit for the unidi-
mensional model is not greatly different, however, and it was clear that the model could be improved.
Thus, further testing in Year 3 seemed warranted.
Validation: Year 3
CFA. On the basis of student responses, we used only 10 of the 11 items from the Year 2 model
in Year 3. We dropped Item 11, “The so-called ‘environmental crisis’ facing people has been blown
out of proportion (exaggerated),” because it received a high number of Do not understand responses,
8 THE JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
FIGURE 1. Confirmatory factor analysis on the 11-Item New Ecological Paradigm
(NEP) Scale for Children During Year 2 (
n = 336). Rights of Nature, Eco-Crisis,
and Human Exemptionalism are factors of the NEP Scale for Children. The val
-
ues above the lines between the factors and the scale indicate the parameter
estimates of the factors. The boxed numbers represent items on the NEP Scale.
The values above the lines between the factors and the scale items indicate the
parameter estimates for the items.
1
4
7
3 6 11 9
2
5
8
10
Rights of
Nature
NEP Scale for
Children
Human
Exemptionalism
Eco-Crisis
.63
.56
.47
.64
.24
.43
.37
.47
.46
.83
.27
.43
.66
.64
indicating that it was difficult for some children to grasp. Table 2 contains the response frequencies
in Year 3 for each of the remaining 10 items (renumbered from 1 to 10).
A CFA with the whole sample (N = 515) in Year 3 revealed a good fit of the data to the Year 2 CFA
model: GFI = .96, AGFI = .93, CFI = .75, RMSEA = .066 (see Figure 2). The results provided fur-
ther evidence that the three-factor structure offers a good solution for the NEP Scale for Children.
Examination of parameter estimates revealed that the three factors fit together better than they
did in Year 2. All three values are between .86 and 1.0, indicating strong relationships. For the
most part, the items within each factor also have strong parameter estimates, although one item in
Rights of Nature and one in Eco-Crisis does not fit as strongly as do the others. The factor Human
Exemptionalism has items with low parameter estimates, indicating that its items do not fit together
as strongly as do those in the other two factors.
In Year 3, the unidimensional model also fits the data well. Model fit statistics are in the same
range as those for the three-factor structure: GFI = .94, AGFI = .90, CFI = .83, RMSEA = .085.
Thus, it appears that, for this student sample, we can treat the NEP Scale for Children as three-
dimensional, giving each student three separate scores, or as a single measure, giving each student
an overall NEP score.
Program assessment. A paired-sample t test of 186 students who participated in the Sunship Earth
program provided evidence of the scale’s effectiveness in detecting changes in students’ environmental
SUMMER 2007, VOL. 38, NO. 4 9
TABLE 2. Frequency Distributions of the Responses to the 10-Item New Ecological
Paradigm (NEP) Scale for Children in Year 3 (
N = 515)
Responses (% of students)
Strongly Not Strongly
Scale item agree Agree sure Disagree disagree
1. Plants and animals have as much
right as people to live. 64.7 22.5 7.6 2.7 2.5
2. There are too many (or almost too
many) people on earth. 8.7 15.0 39.0 17.1 20.2
3. People are clever enough to keep
from ruining the earth. 18.3 20.2 36.9 14.2 10.5
4. People must still obey the laws of
nature. 55.0 24.7 9.9 4.9 5.6
5. When people mess with nature it
has bad results. 38.4 28.5 23.5 5.8 3.7
6. Nature is strong enough to handle
the bad effects of our modern lifestyle. 7.6 9.9 40.4 25.2 16.9
7. People are supposed to rule over
the rest of nature. 6.8 8.2 14.2 27.0 43.9
8. People are treating nature badly. 30.5 34.0 23.7 5.2 6.6
9. People will someday know enough
about how nature works to be able
to control it. 14.8 21.6 39.0 13.0 11.7
10. If things don’t change, we will have
a big disaster in the environment soon. 30.5 29.7 27.8 5.4 6.6
Note. Items 3, 6, 7, and 9 (anti-environmental) were reverse scored to obtain an overall NEP score.
worldviews in a pre- and postprogram assessment (see Table 3). We computed factor and total NEP
scores using average mean scores (on the 5-point scale) across relevant items: Rights of Nature (1, 4, and
7), Eco-Crisis (2, 5, 8, and 10), and Human Exemptionalism (3, 6, and 9). Items 3, 6, 7, and 9 were
reverse scored (i.e., strongly agree = 1 instead of 5). Before performing the statistical analysis, we exam-
ined the data for normal distribution because distortion violates the assumption on which the t test is
based. None of the variables had a distribution far enough from normal for a violation to occur.
10 THE JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
FIGURE 2. Confirmatory factor analyses on the 10-Item New Ecological Paradigm
(NEP) Scale for Children During Year 3 (
N = 515). Rights of Nature, Eco-Crisis,
and Human Exemptionalism are factors of the NEP Scale for Children. The val
-
ues above the lines between the factors and the scale indicate the parameter
estimates of the factors. The boxed numbers represent items on the NEP Scale.
The values above the lines between the factors and the scale items indicate the
parameter estimates for the items.
1
4
7
3
6
9
2
5
8
10
Rights of
Nature
NEP Scale for
Children
Human
Exemptionalism
Eco-Crisis
.97
.24
.77
.63
1.00
.09
–.35
.15
.86
.25
.64
.64
.65
TABLE 3. Comparison of Mean Pre- and Posttest Scores on New Ecological Paradigm
for Children (
n = 186)
Pretest Posttest
Factor M SD M SD t df p Effect size
Rights of Nature 4.22 .70 4.40 .65 –3.71 185 .000
*
.27
Eco-Crisis 3.58 .63 3.72 .67 –2.97 185 .003
*
.27
Human Exemptionalism 2.93 .74 3.12 .74 –3.41 185 .001
*
.25
Total score for scale 3.58 .47 3.74 .74 –5.51 185 .000
*
.39
*
Statistically significant difference (p < .05) between pre-and posttest scores.
Despite that the majority of students attending the program started with pro-ecological scores on two
of the three factors, Rights of Nature and Eco-Crisis, their worldviews changed significantly toward a
more pro-ecological perspective after the program (see Table 3). We loosely interpreted the increase in
their scores on the factor of Human Exemptionalism, from below the midpoint to above it, as reflecting
a shift from a slightly anthropocentric to a slightly ecocentric perspective. Their total scores for the NEP
Scale for Children also increased significantly. Although modest in magnitude, all of these changes were
statistically significant, as shown in the effect size data in Table 3.
Other studies have evaluated the effect of the Sunship Earth program, but all used study-specific
questionnaires (Bires, Johnson, & McFadden, 1982; Keen, 1991; Mulligan, 1989; Payne, 1981; van
Wissen, 1992). Those researchers’ results have been mixed, with most finding little or no change in
attitude. None of the instruments used in those studies, however, were developed using a theoreti-
cally sound construct of attitude or worldview. The NEP Scale for Children, designed specifically to
measure endorsement of an ecological worldview, revealed that the program produced a significant
effect on children’s worldviews. Our data clearly indicate that participation in the Sunship Earth
program produces a shift toward a more pro-ecological worldview among children.
Conclusion
Our results suggest that the NEP Scale for Children, with 10 instead of 15 items and revised word-
ing, is appropriate for use with children ages 10–12 years. We further found that the instrument mea-
sures three interrelated dimensions of the New Ecological Paradigm: Rights of Nature, Eco-Crisis, and
Human Exemptionalism. Dunlap et al. (2000) proposed all three of these dimensions in the design
of the revised NEP Scale. We also found it possible to treat the scale as a unidimensional measure
providing one overall score on the anthropocentric (DSP, low score) to ecocentric (NEP, high score)
continuum, after reverse scoring the negatively worded items of the scale (items 3, 6, 7, and 9).
It is not surprising that the change produced by participation in the Sunship Earth program was
not large. Before participating in the program, the students held pro-environmental (or pro-ecologi-
cal) views on two of the three factors as indicated by the pretest scores, leaving little room for change
in the pro-ecological direction. Anticipation of participation in the program or classroom activities
in preparation for it could have presensitized students toward nature (Bogner, 1998; Howie, 1974).
On the other hand, environmental worldviews are deeply rooted beliefs, and change in them appears
inevitably to be slow (Bogner). Consequently, for a 5-day intervention to produce statistically sig-
nificant effects is impressive. The finding is highly valuable because researchers have not conducted
comparable studies of potential changes in adult worldviews in response to educational programs.
We are currently using the NEP Scale for Children in studies of students participating in earth
education programs in Australia and other parts of the United States. Using the instrument with
larger numbers of students in a variety of locations will help determine the generalizability of the
NEP Scale for Children. Additional administrations also allow for further testing of the three-
dimensional model that emerged in this study. In addition, the NEP Scale for Children can be
a useful instrument for evaluating the ability of environmental learning programs to produce
changes in environmental worldviews. We are using the NEP Scale for Children along with
other instruments, observations, and interviews with children and their parents to investigate the
relationships among environmental worldviews, ecological understandings, and environmental
actions and how education affects those variables.
Despite the positive results of the study, we must use caution when interpreting the findings. The results
may not apply to children in other locations. We cannot generalize our results until we and other research-
ers have conducted further studies with children from other backgrounds and in other locations.
SUMMER 2007, VOL. 38, NO. 4 11
12 THE JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
For more than a quarter of a century, researchers have successfully used the New Environmental
Paradigm Scale and the more recent version, the New Ecological Paradigm Scale, to investigate adult
environmental worldviews. The NEP Scale for Children allows for similar investigations of how
children’s environmental worldviews develop, how they change as a result of new experiences or edu-
cational programs, and how the environmental worldviews of children from different socioeconomic
or cultural backgrounds compare. These are important questions, and the NEP Scale for Children
can play an important role in answering them.
NOTE
1. For pre- and posttest comparison, we selected students who had participated in the Sunship Earth program. Because
Sunship Earth is a longer residential program than Earthkeepers, participation in Sunship Earth is more likely to affect
worldviews (Bogner, 1998).
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