Residential EE Programs Can Increase Trust Among Participants

Many residential environmental education programs are intended to encourage participants to behave in a more environmentally friendly manner. However, the mechanisms of behavior change are complex and difficult to isolate, particularly over time. Thus, research is focusing on important intermediary outcomes, which may facilitate ultimate outcomes of these programs, such as environmental stewardship and civic engagement. While little research exits on trust as an intermediary outcome of environmental education specifically, studies suggest that increased trust through informal education programs may build community and social capital. Other studies relate trust to broader EE-related outcomes, such as civic engagement and collective action.

The authors of this paper look at whether and how trust developed in a residential EE program, and how the development of that trust may differ based on setting. Specifically, they examined whether trust increased among members of a hiking group in the program, explored how social dynamics changed, and tested whether trust differed in the field versus in a classroom.

The study recruited groups of participants from two schools, all 6th graders, who attended NatureBridge's Golden Gate campus program: 28 participants from School 1 attended a parochial school in San Francisco, and most had known each other for many years; School 2 participants consisted of 40 students from 3 classes at a public school in Sacramento, some of whom were strangers. Students completed a survey one-week prior to attending the week-long program at NatureBridge as well as at the end of the program. In addition, researchers gathered open-ended information on trust at the schools, including a focus group, observing participants, and asking them to write about an instance of trust during the program.

A statistical analysis of the survey data measured how trust changed over the course of the program. Survey data were also used to conduct a social network analysis (SNA), which examined trust relationships among participants. The researchers analyzed the open-ended data for themes to complement their findings from the survey.

The authors found that trust increased among participants during the program at NatureBridge. School 2 participants saw a greater increase in trust because School 1 participants trusted each other more pre-program. With the exception of one hiking group, the SNA found that the social structure of hiking groups became more decentralized, suggesting that the groups became more cohesive and trusted each other more. Critically, none of the groups became more fragmented after their experience at NatureBridge. The authors hypothesize that being outside the classroom allowed students to explore new roles and relationships.

The researchers also found that while certain notions of trust are important regardless of setting, two types are particularly important in the field: keeping each other safe during the hikes and feeling trusted by field science educators. These field science educators play an important role in trust-building, and the authors feel this role deserves further study. However, they recommend that residential EE programs should incorporate opportunities to build trust, taking advantage of the differences between the classroom and immersive field setting to increase trust among participants in a short period of time.

This study did not directly investigate how trust, an intermediary outcome of the residential EE program, related to intended EE outcomes, such as pro-environmental behaviors. Further, it's unclear whether trust itself could be an outcome. Additionally, the relatively small number of participants means that a single individual may have skewed results of the statistical analysis or the SNA. The instruments used to measure trust were adapted from existing measures rather than being developed particularly for the field setting. And finally, the authors acknowledge that while they found short-term increases in trust, this study was limited by program length; further research is needed to understand long-term impacts on trust.