http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8348-7605
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Abstract
Evaluations of environmental education (EE) programmes and resources are becoming increasingly visible and important. While benefits accrue through evaluation, many programmes and resources have yet to realise these. Issues such as a lack of clear objectives, reliance on traditional, summative approaches and inattention to context have prevented rigorous evaluation occurring. This paper reports on the development of an analytical tool designed to unravel EE resources. Its theoretical basis is a socially acute questions (SAQ) approach and educational configurations teachers use when implementing this approach. Using these configurations, a series of interrogatory questions were developed to unravel a resource writer’s education intent – what type(s) of knowledge are valued, the view of science presented and the view of learning. Two contrasting resources were analysed to test this tool. This analysis revealed that one resource viewed knowledge as universal, had a scientistic epistemic posture and a doctrinal/pragmatic didactic approach whereas the other viewed knowledge as contextualised, had a relativistic epistemic posture and a problematising/doctrinal didactic approach. Consequently, this tool showed that it was able to unravel a resource writer’s intent, identify gaps so teachers could adapt a resource and build capacity for didactics of EE and its evaluation.
Acknowledgements
Our sincere thanks to Laurence and Jean Simonneaux for their time spent discussing their ideas with us.
Notes
1. A socioscientific issue is science-based issue that has societal implications with no clear-cut answers. Such issues are relevant to learners and involve ethical reasoning. Consequently, when making decisions, both knowledge and values are needed and learners can come to different decisions even when considering the same knowledge base (Zeidler et al. Citation2005).