Careful evaluation of environmental education (EE) programs helps to ensure their effectiveness and highlight areas for improvement. The outcomes of a successful EE program may include increases in students' environmental awareness, as well as improvements in their self-efficacy, meaning confidence in acting to address environmental issues. The authors of this article argue that these outcomes help students develop into citizens who are better able to make informed decisions and take environmental action. To help guide the development and improvement of EE programs, this study evaluated one such program in 8th grade classrooms in the Czech Republic.
The Czech Republic has developed a voluntary, nationwide EE effort called the Forest in School program. This program is based on the Issue Investigation and Action Training model (IIAT), which emphasizes building students' ability to understand and research environmental issues. The Forest in School program has individual units tailored to each grade level, taking into account the educational needs of different age ranges. Each unit consists of 5-8 lessons, to be given throughout the school year. Participating teachers receive lesson materials along with guidelines for implementation.
The researchers surveyed 200 8th grade students at the beginning and end of their schools' implementation of a Forest in School unit. The questionnaire asked students to rate their level of agreement with statements regarding their ability to effect changes in the local environmental (locus of control), and their capacity to deal with conflicts arising from those issues (self-efficacy). The questionnaire also included several open-ended questions that asked students about local environmental issues to measure their environmental awareness. Additionally, to serve as a control group, roughly 150 students who did not receive lessons from a Forest in School unit also completed the questionnaire twice, at the same time interval.
The results show that although the program had some successes, gender strongly influenced how students responded to the lessons. Girls in the experimental group demonstrated a statistically significant increase in measures of individual locus of control. However, boys in the experimental group experienced no significant changes in locus of control. Similarly, in the experimental group, the number of girls who were able to identify a local environmental issue increased significantly after the EE unit, yet the number of boys did not significantly change.
The analysis revealed no changes in self-efficacy among respondents. The students did not demonstrate an increase in awareness of different types of pro-environmental behavior after the unit. Furthermore, roughly 40% of students reported feelings that the authors categorized as “hopelessness” on open-ended questions, and this number did not change after completing the unit.
This study only examined 8th grade students, and the results could differ for other grade levels. Additionally, because teachers' feedback could lend useful insights on the program's implementation, future research could seek out teachers' input on a large scale. Readers should use care when applying the results of this evaluation to EE programs in North America, as there may be important cultural or education differences with the Czech Republic.
The authors recommended modifying the Forest in School program to better address students' self-efficacy. They hypothesized that incorporating environmental action components into the program will help increase self-efficacy and decrease hopelessness. Additionally, the authors suggested that the program should make special efforts to engage boys, since boys appeared less responsive to the current program. Previous research suggests this could be achieved by including more outdoor, action-oriented assignments.
The Bottom Line
To expand our understanding of how EE programs impact students' awareness of and self-efficacy towards environmental issues, the authors of this study evaluated an investigation-based EE program in Czech Republic 8th grade classrooms. The results suggested that students did not report greater self-efficacy after participating in the program. However, girls demonstrated increased internal locus of control and greater environmental awareness after participating, suggesting that the program has the potential to reach its objectives. Therefore, the authors recommended that this program target efforts to engage boys, and incorporate more action-based components to help students improve self-efficacy. Future research could explore whether these recommendations apply to other, similar environmental education programs.