Autobiographical memory functions: an emancipatory approach to construct environmental education outcomes

Abstract

In this study, we assessed how 34 young adult participants in an environmental education (EE) program from 2011 to 2014 constructed their learning outcomes through interviews and the exploration of autobiographical memory functions (AMFs) regarding program experiences. We articulated a variety of directive, social, and self AMFs, including the achievement of the top five typical objectives of EE, increase in positive social norms through reminiscing and sharing memories, and attainment of diverse personal growth. We also constructed the relationship of these outcomes with the ultimate objective of EE. This method can presumably be used to emergently construct outcomes for evaluating emancipatory EE programs, which are on the request of tackling wicked environmental problems.

Keywords:

• Autobiographical memory function
• outcome evaluation
• emancipatory perspective
• qualitative evaluation
• shark

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the following people: the interviewees for participating in the research; Roots & Shoots Beijing Office’s staff members, interns, and volunteers for assisting the process of the study; and the anonymous reviewers for their detailed and helpful comments towards improving our manuscript. Finally, special thanks to Prof. Yu-Chan Chiu for her supportive courses on qualitative research methods.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 ‘Sharing with nonparticipants’ may partially overlap with ‘environmental behaviors’ as it sometimes can be seen as a persuading behavior belonging to environmental actions. However, the difference is that ‘sharing with nonparticipants’ emphasizes ‘talking about the experience’, while ‘environmental behaviors’ may and may not use participants’ program experience as materials for educating others. Moreover, environmental-action behaviors emphasize ‘doings’ that contain more than persuading behaviors, such as participating in or establishing environmental groups, organizing or signing petitions, donating money or materials, and improving physical environment or community development (Alisat and Riemer 2015; Larson et al. 2015; Schusler and Krasny 2010).

2 Both introversion and extraversion have its own advantages and disadvantages based on its context of the moment (Davidson, Gillies, and Pelletier 2015; Grant, Gino, and Hofmann 2011; Matthews, Deary, and Whiteman 2009). Thus here we did not mean that becoming more outgoing is universally good but wanted to point that it might be good for these participants in their situation from their point of view.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of Chinese Academy of Sciences under Grant #Y3ZK061B01 and Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan under Grant 106-2511-S-002-012-MY2.

Notes on contributors

Meng Wu

Meng Wu (M.Sc.) is a Ph.D. student at School of Forestry and Resource Conservation, National Taiwan University. His research focuses on designing and evaluating environmental action education programs.

Zhen Zhu

Zhen Zhu (M.Sc.) was Senior Program Manager at Roots & Shoots Beijing Office, the Jane Goodall Institute China. She was Program Manager of No Shark Fin project during 2011 to 2012.

Jin Chen

Jin Chen (Ph.D.) is a professor at and Director of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on ecology and environmental education.

Lijuan Niu

Lijuan Niu (M.Sc.) was Program Manager of No Shark Fin project at Roots & Shoots Beijing Office, the Jane Goodall Institute China during 2012 to 2016.

Chi-Chang Liu

Chi-Chang Liu (Ph.D.) is an Assistant Professor at School of Forestry and Resource Conservation, National Taiwan University. His research focuses on learning motivations, processes, and outcomes in diverse environmental education programs.