Schools are generally recognized as institutions where information, values, and attitudes are transmitted. School adjustment – that is, a student's ability to adapt to school -- plays a key role in how well individual students benefit from the opportunities provided by their schools. Variables related to school adjustment include academic performance, adaptation to school rules, respect for the teacher as an authority figure, a positive attitude toward school, and participation in school activities.
This study examined possible links between adolescent school adjustment and two environmental constructs: environmental empathy and connectedness to nature. The study also tested the multidimensionality of environmental empathy – that is, testing to see if it includes both emotional and cognitive dimensions. Environmental empathy, in this context, refers to one's ability to feel and understand issues related to the natural environment. The other environmental construct -- connectedness to nature – is defined as “the extent to which one identifies with the natural environment.” This includes the idea that the natural environment is an extension of the self. While environmental empathy and connectedness to nature are linked to pro-environmental behavior, little is known about whether these two constructs might vary as a function of school adjustment.
Over 800 adolescents from six schools in Spain participated in this study by completing a questionnaire which included (1) the Environmental Empathy Scale (EES) and (2) the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS). Items on the EES addressed both the emotional and cognitive dimensions of environmental empathy. Teachers of the participating students completed a separate questionnaire focusing on the adolescents' adjustment to school. This questionnaire included three subscales of the Scale of Teacher's Perceptions of Students (PROF-A): social adjustment, academic competence, and family involvement subscales. Results of the PROF-A revealed three groups of students: students with high levels of school adjustment; students with medium levels of school adjustment; and students with low levels of school adjustment. Only students in the high and low groups were included in follow-up data analysis.
Results showed that adolescents with high school adjustment had more cognitive and emotional environmental empathy and more connectedness to nature than adolescents with low adjustment. Additionally, adolescent females had higher cognitive environmental empathy than males. Females also had greater connectedness to nature than males, but only within the low school adjustment group. Additional analysis confirmed that environmental empathy consists of both cognitive and emotional dimensions; and that connectedness to nature, on the other hand, is a unidimensional construct.
This research offers some support for outdoor classrooms, as such learning environments could promote students' environmental empathy and connectedness to nature, while also helping “children and adolescents with adjustment problems to achieve greater motivation and school integration.”
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