Environmental Literacy in Environmentally Themed Higher Education Courses
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Date
2015-05Author
King, Jordan A.
Publisher
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, College of Natural Resources
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Amidst the burgeoning environmental crisis impacting our world, including
ecological, social, political, economic, and cultural forces, the need to act with
environmentally responsible behavior is increasingly necessary. As a significant setting
for personal growth, higher education must seek to cultivate in its students the capacity to
respond to environmental issues. This study assessed how environmentally themed higher
education courses are related with growth in environmental literacy. Using a framework
for assessing environmental literacy developed by Hollweg, et al. (2011), this study
measured the changes occurring in environmental knowledge, dispositions, competencies,
and behavior in environmentally themed higher education courses. These changes were
compared across pedagogical perspectives, separated into ecological science-based,
humanities and social science-based, and integrative environmental studies. This study
found that environmentally themed higher education courses had a significant impact, t
(678) = 39.53, p < .001, on students’ self-perceptions of their environmental literacy.
Specifically, students in integrative environmental studies courses (M = .80) experienced
the greatest growth across all aspects, while humanities and social science-based courses
(M = .35) exhibited the smallest differences between pre- and post-test. Instructors were
shown to emphasize knowledge and competencies most of the environmental literacy
aspects. Ultimately, this study suggests the need for further environmental education
principles, methods, and objectives in higher education and the conception of
environmental literacies that depend on individual competencies and context to make the
capacities of students’ more meaningful in response to environmental issues.