Development and validation of two scales to measure elaboration and behaviors associated with stewardship in children

Abstract

This investigation examines the development of two scales that measure elaboration and behaviors associated with stewardship in children. The scales were developed using confirmatory factor analysis to investigate their construct validity, reliability, and psychometric properties. Results suggest that a second-order factor model structure provides the best fit. This model produced: (1) a stewardship elaboration scale measuring interest and cognitive engagement in stewardship issues, and (2) a stewardship behavior scale measuring in-park, community, and home behaviors. These scales will be useful for evaluating environmental educational programs focused on environmental and park stewardship. The scales may also help researchers assess whether environmental education results in participants elaborating on persuasive messaging, thereby increasing the likelihood that behavioral intentions leading to behavior change will occur.

Keywords:

• confirmatory factor analysis
• scale development
• elaboration likelihood model
• stewardship behavior
• environmental education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sue L Vezeau is currently an environmental planner with the Dept of Ecology, State of Washington. Her work is focused on managing critical habitat and resources at risk. She received her PhD from the Dept of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management at Clemson University in 2014.

Robert B Powell is the George B. Hartzog, Jr. Endowed Professor in Philosophy, Parks, and Environmental Ethics in the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management at Clemson University. He is also the director of the Institute for Parks, which is an interdisciplinary institute focused on providing research, training, and outreach to support park and protected area management. His research and outreach program has taken him to over 40 countries and 6 continents and focuses on environmental education/interpretation, ecotourism, and protected area management.

Marc J Stern is an associate professor in the College of Natural Resources and Environment at Virginia Tech. His research, teaching, and outreach focus on the predictors and consequences of human behavior across multiple contexts, including environmental decision-making, collaborative natural resource management, protected areas management, environmental education, interpretation and communication, program evaluation, and informal science learning.

DeWayne Moore is a professor in the Psychology Department at Clemson University. His interests and teaching focus on quantitative methods. Moore teaches four quantitative methods courses for PhD students from several different departments and he has served on over 100 dissertation committees. He has served as a quantitative consultant for the CDC and on grants from NSF and NIH. Moore has published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Brett Wright is professor and Interim dean, College of Health, Education and Human Development at Clemson University. He is former chairman, Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management at Clemson University. He has published extensively on the human dimensions of natural resources management in national and international journals and has conducted social science research for organizations around the world including the US National Park Service, US Forest Service, state fish and wildlife agencies, and local park and recreation organizations.

Notes

1. For evaluation purposes, we also selected the independent samples design because it eliminates the potential for testing bias associated with pre-post designs and shorter duration programs (e.g. Babbie 2001; Beaumont 2001; Powell, Kellert, and Ham 2009) as well as reducing participant burden.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Friends of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.