Researchers and Research in Environmental Education: A critical review essay on Mark Rickinson's report on learners and learning

Abstract

In reviewing Mark Rickinson's report analysing research focused on 'Learners and learning in environmental education' from 1993 to 1999, the authors of this article bear in mind three broad questions around which the paper is organized. First, what is the posture adopted by Rickinson while reviewing what he calls the 'evidence base' stemming from selected empirical studies? The first part of this paper tries to identify the main aspects of his referential framework. Answering such a question improves one's reading of the report from the 'inside' but also helps looking at it from the 'outside' and to envision it from different complementary perspectives. This leads to a second question. Could there be another story we could write from the same 'evidence base'? In the second part, we thus give our own account from this review of the 'evidence base', by focusing on what it tells us about 'researchers and research' in environmental education instead of focusing solely on 'learners and learning': which conceptions of learning, of environment, of environmental education, of evaluation and of research in general underlie researchers' work? These observations lead to the third question. What other avenues of research could be identified and explored? This third part raises some issues about theoretical speculative research, philosophical research, interpretative research, critical research, postmodern research and finally issues about actors involved in research.