Relationship between professional networks and practice change in environmental education

Abstract

Environmental educators exchange ideas in social networks, which may in turn impact their practices. This study uses social network analysis, surveys, correlation analysis and interviews to examine the relationship between network and practice change in three professional development programs. In the first program that used face-to-face activities, educators’ in-degree and betweenness centrality and in-degree tie strength were positively associated with practice change. In the second, online only program, only in-degree centrality was positively associated with practice change. However, in the third program with both face-to-face and online activities and the highest network density, no significant associations between network characteristics and practice change were measured. The results help us understand the role of developing professional networks in educators’ practice change through professional development programs.

Keywords:

• Professional networks
• practice change
• professional development
• environmental education

Acknowledgements

We are deeply grateful to the participants of all three professional development programs in this study for sharing their program experiences with us. We thank program leaders and facilitators including Judy Braus, Anne Ferguson, Jose “Pepe” Marcos-Iga, Akiima Price, and Alex Kudryavtsev for their support. We also thank Justin Dillon, Shorna Allred and Matthew Brashears for providing feedback on this study. Finally, we thank Françoise Vermeylen and Wang Liao for advice on statistical analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The professional development programs described in this research were funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency through a cooperative agreement with the Cornell University (Assistant Agreement No. NT-83497401). This paper has not been formally reviewed by EPA. The views expressed are solely those of the authors and EPA does not endorse any products or commercial services mentioned.

Orcid

Yue Li: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2930-2160

Marianne E. Krasny http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8520-8438