Development and validation of the environmental literacy instrument for adolescents

Abstract

Environmental education (EE) practitioners struggle to consistently and rigorously evaluate their programs, particularly when little time is available for evaluation. Since environmental literacy (EL) is the goal of environmental education, a very short EL instrument – amenable to use when longer tests are not practical for practitioners – would address an important EE need. We describe the development and validation of the Environmental Literacy Instrument for Adolescents (ELI-A) that is short enough for use in field applications (i.e. 5–15 min) and measures four domains of environmental literacy (ecological knowledge, hope, cognitive skills, behaviour). Factor analysis, item response theory, and concurrent validity tests were used in the validation process. Structural equation modelling supported the fit between the ELI-A and prevailing EL frameworks. The results support a valid and reliable instrument that is short enough for practical use but comprehensive in measuring four primary components of EL. This instrument could help fulfil the call to evaluate EE programming in both formal and informal settings.

Keywords:

• High school
• scale development
• environmental education
• agriculture education
• knowledge
• hope
• affect
• dispositions
• cognitive skills
• behaviour

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the faculty members from the Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology program and Applied Ecology Department at North Carolina State University for their assistance in developing the cognitive skills question on sustainable fisheries.

Notes

1. Multilogical thinking refers to ‘thinking that sympathetically enters, considers, and reasons within multiple points of view,’ such as looking at an ecological problem from moral, political, and biological perspectives (Paul 1995).