DEVELOPMENT OF AN INSTRUMENT TO MEASURE ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY OF POST-SECONDARY GREEK STUDENTS – PILOT TESTING AND PRELIMINARY RESULTS

Abstract

Numerous attempts have been made to measure levels of environmental literacy around the world, only five of which were at the national level. To date, no comprehensive study has been carried out with in Greece. The main focus of our research was to develop an instrument (Greek Environmental Literacy Instrument – GELI) to contribute to evaluating the environmental literacy of post-secondary Greek students. The GELI measures 3 different dimensions (Knowledge, Affect, Behavior) using a written questionnaire with 83 items and 17 demographic variables. The sample of the pilot implementation of the instrument was comprised of 59 students at the onset of their studies in two Greek Universities. The students were given 45 minutes to answer the questions. Statistical analysis was performed in order to verify the validity and reliability of the GELI. The authors investigated the relationships among knowledge, affect and behavior of the students and the influence of background factors on their environmental literacy. Preliminary results of our research are discussed at the end of the study.

Full text

DEVELOPMENT OF AN INSTRUMENT TO MEASURE
ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY OF POST-SECONDARY
GREEK STUDENTS – PILOT TESTING AND
PRELIMINARY RESULTS
1
Kyriazi P. and
1
Mavrikaki E.
1
Faculty of Primary Education, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
Greece
Abstract: Numerous attempts have been made to measure levels of environmental
literacy around the world, only five of which were at the national level. To date, no
comprehensive study has been carried out with in Greece. The main focus of our
research was to develop an instrument (Greek Environmental Literacy Instrument –
GELI) to contribute to evaluating the environmental literacy of post-secondary Greek
students. The GELI measures 3 different dimensions (Knowledge, Affect, Behavior)
using a written questionnaire with 83 items and 17 demographic variables. The
sample of the pilot implementation of the instrument was comprised of 59 students at
the onset of their studies in two Greek Universities. The students were given 45
minutes to answer the questions. Statistical analysis was performed in order to verify
the validity and reliability of the GELI. The authors investigated the relationships
among knowledge, affect and behavior of the students and the influence of
background factors on their environmental literacy. Preliminary results of our
research are discussed at the end of the study.
Key words: environmental literacy, questionnaire, post-secondary students, GELI
INTRODUCTION
Disinger and Roth (1992) credit Charles E. Roth with coining the term environmental
literacy (EL) in 1968 (Morrone et al. 2001). Although Environmental Education/
Education for Sustainable Development (EE/ESD) experts have discussed EL for
more than thirty years – there is not a universal definition for it. According to a recent
review study, an environmentally literate person is someone who, both individually
and together with others, makes informed decisions concerning the environment, is
willing to act on these decisions to improve the well-being of other individuals,
societies, and the global environment and participates in civic life (Hollweg et al.
2011). This definition treats cognitive (knowledge, skills), affective and behavioral
components as both interactive and developmental in nature and suggests that the
main components of EL are Knowledge, Affect, Behavior and Skills (McBride 2001,
Hollweg et al. 2011).
A survey of the existing literature pointed out that the research studies pertaining to
any dimensions of EL are substantial. However, the studies that focused upon the
measurement of combined EL components using a written questionnaire, which was
developed within a theoretical framework of EL, were much fewer (29 studies). Only
five (5) of these studies were nationwide. To date, no comprehensive study measuring
EL levels has been carried out in Greece. The purpose of this study was to develop an
instrument in order to assess the EL level of post-secondary Greek students.

SAMPLE
Pilot testing of our research instrument was carried out with 59 students from two
Greek universities. We conducted our research in the autumn of 2012. The draft
instrument was tested by administering it to first year students (incoming freshmen) at
the first semester of the academic year to ensure that the results reflect the
respondents’ characteristics that were acquired before their exposure to academic
content. Participants were given 45 minutes to answer the questions. We personally
distributed 60 questionnaires and received 59 completed. The characteristics of the
sample are presented in Table 1.
Table 1
Description of the sample
Demographic characteristics
Age
Range 18-22, mean= 18.27, SD= 0.69
Gender
Men
22 (22.0%)
Women
46 (78.0%)
Parents’ residence
Urban
Rural
24 (40.7%)
35 (59.3%)
Direction of school studies
Science
34 (57.6%)
Humanities
23 (39.0%)
Technology
2 (3.4%)
Secondary school degree average
Range 15-20, mean= 18.35, SD= 1.05
METHOD – INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT
For the purpose of the study we developed the GELI (Greek Environmental Literacy
Instrument). A review of the theoretical literature of EE/ESD helped us develop our
conceptual framework (McBride 2001, Hollweg et al., 2011 and references therein),
and applied studies provided the basis on which we constructed the GELI (Table 2).
The GELI is comprised of three EL components: (1) Knowledge, (2) Affect and (3)
Environmentally Responsible Behavior, along with questions focusing on gathering
data about students’ demographic profile. The Knowledge questionnaire consists of
multiple choice items, while Affect and Behavior were measured using five-point
Likert-type scales.

Table 2
Studies along with the main components of each instrument and the country in which it was
implemented.
No
Instr.
Country
Study
Knowledge
Affect
Behavior
Skills
1
WELI
United States
(Wisconsin)
Champeau et al. 1994
√
√
√
2
(ELI)
*
United States (Ohio)
Morrone et al. 2001
√
√
3
ELIKC
Korean
Chu et al. 2007
√
√
√
√
4
(ELI)
*
Israel
Nagev et al. 2008
√
√
√
5
(ELI)
*
Israel
Yavetz et al. 2009
√
√
√
6
ELQ
Turkey
Tuncer et al. 2009
√
√
7
MSELS
United States
McBeth & Volk 2010
√
√
√
√
8
ESELI
Turkey
Erdogan & Ok 2011
√
√
√
√
Note.
*
= (ELI): Environmental Literacy Instrument –no specific name was given by authors
Initially we created an item pool including items drawn from instruments developed
and validated in previous studies (245 items) along with items that the researchers of
the present study developed (50 items) in order to make the instrument more
appropriate for the Greek population. The items in the pool were sorted according to
the components and sub-components of EL (Erdogan & Ok, 2011). Then, the authors
and two in-service teachers, experts in EE/ESD, were asked to check the face validity
of the instrument. Following their observations 155 items were gradually excluded.
Then, the remaining items (140) were subjected to exploratory factor analysis using
the Principal Components Analysis method. Thus, 29 items from the part ‘AFFECT’
and 14 items from the part ‘BEHAVIOR’ were also excluded due to their low loading
score (<0.40) in the factor analysis or due to yielding high loadings to more than one
factors. The final draft of GELI was composed of 4 parts including 100 items.
Demographic variables and components and sub-components of the final instrument,
along with the number of items in each of these sections, are presented in Table 3.

Table 3
Greek Environmental Literacy Instrument (GELI)
Demographic variables and
Components and sub-components of GELI
Number of items
Demographic variables
Student characteristics (8)
Gender
Age
Nationality
Parents’ residence
School of studies
Secondary school degree
Direction of studies
Semester of studies
Students’ environmental background(6)
Parents’ level of education
Parents’ profession
Parents’ environmental sensitivity
Outdoor activities
Source of environmental knowledge
Significant Life experiences (4)
17
Components and sub-components of GELI
Knowledge
Ecological knowledge (14)
Environmental issues (24)
Socio political – Economic knowledge (4)
Affect
Worldview (2)
Concern about environmental problems (2)
Anti-anthropocentrism (6)
Regulation attitude (4)
Personal involvement/Sense of responsibility (2)
Intention to learn/Eagerness to learn (5)
Willingness/Motivation/Intention to act (4)
Behavior
Conservation/Eco-management (5)
Consumer and Economic action (2)
Action regarding waste (2)
Individual Persuasion (1)
Personal and Political Action (6)
42
25
16
Total
100

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF GELI
In order to examine the construct validity and factor structure of the instrument, the
25 items in the Affective Scale (AS) and 16 items in the Environmentally Responsible
Behavior Scale (ERBS) were separately subjected to exploratory factor analysis with
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Direct Oblimin Rotation. For the AS, the
analysis yielded a three factor solution which accounted for approximately 51.27% of
the total variance (Τable 4). For the ERBS the analysis yielded a two factor solution
which accounted for approximately 68.0% of the variance (Τable 5).
Internal consistency of the scales was calculated using Cronbach’s Alpha. Data
revealed a high internal consistency of the AS, ERBS and Knowledge Scales (KS)
(a=.87, a=.83, a=.84 respectively).
Τable 4
Abbreviations, Eigenvalues, Variances of factors and Cronbach’s Alpha Values for
the Affective Scale (AS).
Abbreviation (Factor name)
Eigenvalues
% Variance
Internal consistency
of each factor
ATTITUDE (Factor 1)
Anti-anthropocentrism
Regulation Attitude
Personal involv./Sense of responsibility
6.65
26.60
.89
INTENTION (Factor 2)
Intention to learn/Eagerness to learn
Intention to act/Willingness/Motivation
4.11
16.46
.86
AWARNESS (Factor 3)
Eco-crisis
Concern about Envir.Problems
2.05
8.22
.59
Τable 5
Abbreviations, Eigenvalues, Variances of factors and Cronbach’s Alpha Values for
REBS.
Abbreviation (Factor name)
Eigenvalues
% Variance
Internal consistency
of each factor
ACTION (Factor 1)
Action regarding waste
Individual Persuasion
Personal and Political Action
5.20
32.50
.87
CON-HABITS (Factor 2)
Conservation Habits/Eco-management
Consumer habits
2.19
13.68
.69

PRELIMINARY RESULTS
Means and standard deviations of each component were determined using IBM SPSS
19.0 (Table 6).
Significant correlations were recorded between AFFECT and BEHAVIOR (r=13.50,
p<.001). More specifically, there was revealed a linear regression between
INTENSION and BEHAVIOR (t
(58)
=3.15, p<.05, r
2
=0.15) and between
KNOWLEDGE and INTENSION (t
(58)
=2.43, p<.05,
r
2
= 0.09).
Students’ BEHAVIOR differed according to their mothers’ sensitivity (t
(56)
=-3.13,
p<.01). Furthermore, ATTITUDE differed among students with a role model in their
life (t
(57)
=-2.62 p<.05). The analyzed data also reveal that students enrolled in the
Science direction of studies demonstrated a significant higher level of environmental
knowledge in comparison with students in Humanities (F
(2)
=9.26, p<.001).
Table 6
Range, mean scores and standard deviations of the scales measuring Greek
secondary students’ Environmental Literacy.
Scale
Range
Mean
SD
Level
Knowledge
0-42
23.92
6.42
moderate
Affect
1-5
3.81
0.42
high
Behavior
1-5
2.57
0.57
moderate
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
The environmental knowledge of post-secondary Greek students was found to be
moderate. However, this result is only indicative, we suspect that their knowledge
level is actually lower than moderate. This suspicion is based on research studies on
student’s misconceptions. According to these studies even though multiple choice
items successfully test students knowledge on a particular concept, a lot of times this
was misleading because while students circle the correct responses when they were
asked to explain their responses they did so incorrectly and revealed misconceptions
(Khalid, 2003; Arslan et al., 2012).
Since our sample consisted of very good students with high grade point averages, we
conclude that their deficiencies in ecological and environmental knowledge were
probably either due to a weakness on the content of the Greek school curriculum or
due to teaching methodologies since most of the Greek science teachers use
traditional teaching strategies providing information to students who memorize the
material and try to reproduce it on the day of examination.

On the other hand, the Science-oriented students scored higher in contrast with the
Humanities students, as expected. According to research studies students inclined
toward science-affiliated subjects were more confident of their ideas, were tending to
think in a less generalized, more specific manner and displayed significantly more
knowledge than did the non-science affiliated students (Boyes et al., 1995; Hillman et
al., 1996; Pe’er et al., 2007). The difference between the two groups may result from
exposure in high school to science topics (such as physics, chemistry, biology,
environmental science), from personal interest in environmental topics, or from
exposure to the subject in nonformal frameworks. Similarly, Tikka et al. (2000) found
that Finnish college students majoring in biology exhibited the greatest level of
knowledge and they participated in many nature-related activities in comparison with
students majoring in other subjects.
Despite their moderate level of knowledge, students seemed to have a high level of
ΑFFECT (attitudes, awareness and intention to act). This finding is consistent with
research conducted among students in Turkey (Tuncer et al., 2005), Korea (Chu et al.,
2007) and Israel (Negev et al., 2008). This result was to be expected for the Greek
students because they are exposed to Environmental Non-Formal Education Programs
during school years that cultivate a high level of Affect. Unfortunately most of these
programs do not significantly contribute to their Knowledge.
Environmentally responsible behavior of the students was generally moderate.
However, students with a high level of positive environmental behavior were those
who strongly display the intention to act for the protection of the environment,
willingness to learn more about these subject areas and were more knowledgeable
than the others.
It has been shown that the SLE shapes the environmental attitudes and actions of
people (Chawla 2006; Hsu, 2009). This is also found to be the case in the present
study. Experiences mentioned in our student sample were, most importantly, a role
model in their life (most often a mother or a teacher) followed by extended time spent
outdoors in nature, loss of a beloved natural place, and their participation in EE/ESD
programs. These experiences seem to influence their attitudes positively towards the
environment and their intention to act for its protection.
These are only some of the preliminary results of our study. The instrument will be
further implemented in a larger, more representative sample of the Greek population
and then more complicated analyses methods (Path Model, etc) will be used for the
interpretation of the results. We see the implementation of GELI as the first in a series
of EL assessments that may help us assess where we stand with respect to EL in
Greece.
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