Environmental Education for Behaviour Change: Which actions should be targeted?

Abstract

One aim of environmental education is to enable people to make informed decisions about their environmental behaviour; this is particularly significant with environmental problems that are believed to be both major and imminent, such as climate change resulting from global warming. Previous research suggests no strong link between a person's general environmental attitudes and knowledge, and his or her willingness to undertake pro-environmental actions, so this study focuses on some specific issues. Using survey methods to produce quantitative data about students' beliefs concerning the usefulness of specific actions and their willingness to adopt them, novel indices have been constructed that indicate the potential of education to increase students' willingness to undertake those actions. The findings imply that altering a student's belief about certain issues will have little effect on their willingness to act. This can be because most students, even those with only a weak belief in the efficacy, are prepared to take action anyway. Conversely, it can be because a majority, including those convinced about the efficacy, are not prepared to take action. Education about such actions, where there is only a weak link between believed effectiveness and willingness to act, may be ineffective in terms of changing practice, because other factors such as social norms and situational influences dominate. For such actions other strategies may be required. For another set of actions, however, the benefits of education in changing practice seemed more positive; increasing recycling, reducing the use of artificial fertilisers and planting more trees are examples.

Keywords:

• Environmental education
• Quantitative research
• Environmental action
• Climate change
• Global warming

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the referees for suggesting important improvements to the original manuscript.

Notes

In reality, the addition of anthropogenic pollutants to the atmosphere results in an exacerbation of the natural ‘greenhouse effect’ leading to an increase in the average temperature of the lower level of the Earth's atmosphere and of the oceans – ‘global warming’. A major consequence of this is long-term changes in weather patterns over a region or across the planet—‘climate change’. In this paper we have elected to use the term ‘global warming’ because it describes the primary consequence of this process.