Improving preservice educators' self-efficacy beliefs through environmental education intervention

While standards have been developed to improve EE curricula, in order for EE to be effective, educators must feel confident in their ability to teach it. Research suggests that an educator's belief in their own teaching ability, or self-efficacy, impacts their ability to teach effectively. A strong sense of self-efficacy generally leads to higher teacher motivation, which can lead to well-planned lessons and willingness to help students. As a result, students may experience greater growth and achievement from highly motivated teachers. This research investigated whether preservice teachers' self-efficacy increased after an educational intervention and how these beliefs were transferred to their curricula.

The authors applied the theory of social learning to this research, which proposes two branches of self-efficacy: 1) personal efficacy—a person's self-confidence in their ability to complete a task; and 2) outcome expectancy—a person's belief that a behavior will garner a certain result. For instance, if a person believes that teaching students pro-recycling behaviors will help the environment, then the person is likely to include recycling in the curricula. In contrast, if the person has low confidence that recycling curricula will cause change, then the person will exclude it from the curricula. Previous researchers developed a questionnaire to measure beliefs about EE efficacy, namely the Environmental Education Efficacy Belief Instrument (EEEBI). This instrument contains two measurements of self-efficacy, the Personal Environmental Teaching Efficacy (PETE) and Environmental Teaching Outcome Expectancy (ETOE). The survey instrument includes 23 questions asking participants to indicate their level of agreement with various statements such as “I cannot teach about the environment as well as I can teach other topics.”

This research occurred at an unnamed private university in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. The authors recruited students in a preservice teaching program who were participating in an Environmental Education Intervention (EEI). This program had 35 enrolled students and all agreed to participate in the study. The majority identified as white females between the ages of 18 and 22. Participating in EEI meant taking two courses that were not typically offered in the curriculum. During their sophomore year, participants enrolled in Investigations in Mathematics and Science, a course that encouraged them to think critically about math and science with an environmental focus. The students took part in collaborative work, such as designing research approaches and collecting data for a report. During their junior year, students took a course entitled Managing the Teaching and Learning Environment. This course addressed EE state standards and focused on three topics, namely Agriculture and Society, Integrated Pest Management, and Threatened, Endangered and Extinct Species.

The researchers distributed the EEEBI questionnaire three times: at the beginning and end of participants' sophomore year, and at the end of their junior year. In addition, the researchers asked participants to submit a teaching unit following their participation in the EEI program. The researchers analyzed the units to identify common themes and used statistics to analyze the EEEBI surveys.

Overall, findings were mixed. The results suggested that personal efficacy increased during sophomore year but decreased during junior year. In contrast, the participants' beliefs in outcome expectancy did not increase or decrease throughout the study. Less than half of participants (14) submitted a teaching unit, and only half of those mentioned one of the EE standards discussed previously.

The researchers concluded that the intervention increased personal self-efficacy beliefs after the participants' sophomore years, but participants reverted back to their initial self-efficacy levels after junior year. Because the outcome expectancy measure did not change, the researchers suggested that the course participants took during their sophomore year (Investigations in Math and Science) may have been more influential than their junior year course (Managing the Teaching and Learning Environment). The authors hypothesized that the shift in self-efficacy beliefs was due to the environment of the classes. For example, the authors emphasized that the Investigations in Math and Science class focused on EE topics through inquiry instruction, thus engaging students to work collaboratively and master the material. In contrast, Managing the Teaching and Learning Environment Course applied instructional methods across a range of pedagogies that focused on classroom organization and student management. These results are aligned with findings from previous studies.

The findings from the teaching units indicated that participants lacked the ability to transfer self-efficacy beliefs to their curricula, but that participants applied interdisciplinary learning to their units. The study found that participants' teaching units discussed science (10), social studies (3), and mathematics (1). Half (7) of the units discussed one of the EE standards mentioned previously, 6 of which included Threatened, Endangered and Extinct Species. The authors noted that many of the units relied on readings for EE rather than developing knowledge through activities, indicating a lack of self-efficacy in teaching the material.

The authors emphasized that this study did not identify the causal link between the EEI program and changes in self-efficacy beliefs, rather it provided insight into the relationship between the two. There could be many reasons why self-efficacy beliefs shifted during the participants' junior year. The researchers encourage caution when interpreting the results, as change in self-efficacy beliefs may vary for preservice educators in different programs, regions of the U.S., or of varying demographics. Lastly, the study had relatively little data on how participants applied what they had learned to the curriculum because only 14 of the participants submitted a teaching unit.

The researchers recommend that practitioners implement complementary courses, such as those described in this study, in the EE curriculum for preservice teachers. In addition, the authors recommend that before implementing a program similar to EEI, the university should notify stakeholders to ensure principals, teachers, and field coordinators are working to achieve the same goal. The EEI program not only encouraged instructors to use integrated teaching tools, but it also influenced preservice teachers to identify the link between courses and apply interdisciplinary learning to their EE curricula. Through this program, preservice teachers could increase their self-efficacy beliefs, promoting future development and growth in environmental education curricula.