Teachers and teaching about the environment in science ...
Elementary teachers’ Beliefs About, perceived capacities FOR, and REPORTED use of scientific inquiry to promote student learning about and for the environment
by
Cory T. Forbes
A thesis submitted
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
For the degree of
Master of Science
(School of Natural Resources and Environment)
University of Michigan
April 2009
Thesis Committee:
Associate Professor Michaela Zint, Chair
Associate Professor Betsy Davis
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank the teachers who participated in and made this study possible. Teachers have nearly limitless demands placed on their time. As a teacher, particularly a beginning teacher, it is a challenge to meet all of the responsibilities and obligations of the typical school day, much less anything additional. Yet, despite this, teachers in this study gave their time to help myself and others better understand what they think and what they do in the classroom. They are owed a great debt of gratitude.
I also thank the School of Natural Resources & Environment for the financial support provided through the Opus Research Funding to carry-out this study. Without these funds, this study would not have been possible. The willingness of SNRE to financially support student research is consistent with the University of Michigan’s overall commitment to support all facets of graduate students’ professional development, including engaging in timely and substantive research.
I would like to thank my thesis committee chair, Professor Michaela Zint, and committee member, Professor Betsy Davis. Michaela, you have fully supported me in pursuing my masters degree and traversing back and forth between the worlds of science education and environmental education. I particularly appreciate your willingness to accommodate my own learning goals for this study, your honest, straightforward feedback, and your occasional reminders that there are more important things in life than work. I have always looked forward to our meetings and conversations. Finally, Betsy, thank you for first allowing me to pursue these interests in a way that complemented my doctoral work in the School of Education.
Abstract
For this study, I developed a survey instrument to measure 1) if elementary teachers differentiate between engaging students in scientific inquiry to promote learning about environmental issues and for environmental decision-making and action, 2) their beliefs about, perceived capacities for, and reported use of these teaching practices, and 3) relationships between these variables and relevant professional teacher characteristics. Based on publicly-available documents, I created a population (N=762) of elementary teachers in school districts within and immediately adjacent to the university community and administered the survey to a randomly-selected sample (n=250). I received a 52% response rate and employed quantitative analytical methods, including factor analyses. Findings suggest that elementary teachers do not differentiate between inquiry practices that promote student learning about environmental issues and scientific concepts and those for decision-making and action. Teachers strongly believed that they should engage students in scientific inquiry to learn about and for the environment. However, they perceived their capacities to do so as insufficient and, as a result, reported actually engaging students in these inquiry practices even less.
Important relationships were observed between teachers’ beliefs about, perceived capacities, and reported use of inquiry to support students’ learning about and for the environment. For example, the amount of time the teachers reported teaching about the environment in general was significantly related to their beliefs about, perceived capacities, and reported use of inquiry practices to support student learning about and for the environment. Additionally, teachers who took an environmental teaching methods course reported believing more strongly that they should engage students in inquiry to learn about and for the environment. The relationship between number of environmental education-related professional development experiences teachers reported and their perceived capacities to engage students in inquiry to learn about and for the environment was also statistically-significant. However, the relationship between number of science content courses taken and teachers’ beliefs about, perceived capacities for, and reported use of inquiry were statistically-insignificant. These and other findings suggest that not only do teachers not differentiate between teaching and about and for the environment, but that certain experiences, such as formal coursework, professional development, and classroom experiences may better support teachers to engage in effective, inquiry-based science teaching about and for the environment.
Table of Contents
|ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |i |
|ABSTRACT |ii |
|LIST OF TABLES |v |
|LISTOF FIGURES |vi |
|LIST OF APPENDICES |vii |
|INTRODUCTION |1 |
|LITERATURE REVIEW |7 |
|STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS |19 |
|RESULTS |32 |
|DISCUSSION |44 |
|REFERENCES |56 |
|APPENDICES |63 |
List of Tables
|Table 1: Survey Items to Measure Inquiry Practices to Promote Student Learning about and for the Environment |21 |
|Table 2: Rotated Factor Matrix for 3 Sets of 10 Questions |27 |
|Table 3: Factor Analysis: Total Variance Explained |28 |
|Table 4: Comparison of Eigenvalues from Factor Analysis and Parallel Analysis |29 |
|Table 5: α Values for Inquiry Practices Survey Items |30 |
|Table 6: Results from Paired-Samples T-tests Comparing Elementary Teachers’ Inquiry Practices to Support Student Learning |35 |
|about and for the Environment | |
|Table 7: Correlations between Elementary Teachers’ Inquiry Practices to Support Student Learning about and for the |36 |
|Environment | |
|Table 8: Summary of Statistically-significant Relationships (x) Between Demographic Variables and Teachers’ Beliefs, |39 |
|Perceived Capacities, and Reported Use of Inquiry to Promote Students’ Learning about and for the Environment. | |
|Table 9: Correlations between Time Spent Teaching About Environmental Issues in the Context of Science and Teachers’ |39 |
|Beliefs, Perceived Capacities, and Reported Classroom Practice | |
|Table 10: Correlations between Teaching Experience and Teachers’ Beliefs, Perceived Capacities, and Reported Classroom |40 |
|Practice | |
List of Figures
|Figure 1: Scree Plot for Factor Analysis of 30 Survey Items (3 Sets of 10 questions) |29 |
List of aPPENDICES
|Appendix A: Survey Instrument (Hard Copy) |63 |
|Appendix B: Survey Instrument (Online Version) |70 |
|Appendix C: Invitation Letter 1 |80 |
|Appendix D: Invitation Letter 2 |81 |
|Appendix E: Invitation Letter 3 |82 |
|Appendix F: Institutional Review Board Exemption |83 |
Introduction
Education about the environment is crucial to promoting sustainability in society. However, due to the interdisciplinary nature of environmental education and its somewhat devalued status in the American school curriculum, it has historically struggled not only to define itself as a field, but, more importantly, to find a niche in classrooms through which to engage students in environmental issues. Of the commonly-taught subjects in U.S. schools, the science curriculum has often been the most welcoming to teaching and learning about the environment because environmental issues inherently possess substantial scientific dimensions (i.e., DeBoer, 1991). An explicit focus on human relations with the environment remains a cornerstone of perspectives within the field of science education (DeBoer, 1991; Turner & Sullenger, 1999), such as those that emphasize science-technology-society (Aikenhead, 1994; Hodson, 2003) and socioscientific issues (Forbes & Davis, 2008; Sadler, 2006; Sadler, Amirshokoohi, Kazempour, & Allspaw, 2006; Sadler, Barab, & Scott, 2006; Sadler & Zeidler, 2005).
In both environmental education and science education, there are contemporary trends that increasingly recognize the social, cultural, political, and economic dimensions of science and environmental issues. For environmental education, there has been a move towards education for sustainable development (ESD) as a more holistic context for environmental education (Gonzalez-Gaudiano, 2005; Hopkins & McKeown, 1999; McKeown & Hopkins, 2005). Environmental education and ESD share many similar characteristics. Both are multidisciplinary, emphasize behavior change, often address controversial issues, and wrestle with the same challenges associated with their inclusion in the school curriculum. However, while a clear compatibility exists between environmental education and ESD, the trend towards ESD represents an explicit shift in focus from particular environmental issues to the broader context in which they exist, as well as the ultimate goals of their resolution. Exploring the often subtle difference environmental education and ESD is not the purpose of the study here. However, this defining discourse within the field of environmental education does show that there is growing recognition that it is critical to not only emphasize the environmental dimensions of a given issue, but social, cultural, economic, and political ones as well.
Similar trends can be seen within science education, both historically and in recent years. Current science education reform efforts are heavily oriented towards promoting students’ understanding of scientific concepts and content by providing them with opportunities to engage in scientific inquiry (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993; National Research Council, 1996, 2000). Scientific inquiry and its constituent practices are grounded in the same epistemological commitments as those of science. These practices include engaging in scientifically-oriented questions, making predictions, designing and conducting investigations, collecting and analyzing data and evidence, making evidence-based explanations, and comparing explanations. Knowledge developed through inquiry can also be used to engage in relevant problem-solving, such as those of technological design, through another related but distinct set of inquiry practices. These practices include identifying problems, proposing, implementing, and evaluating solutions, and communicating proposed solutions.
These inquiry practices support students to construct knowledge through classroom practice and to use that knowledge effectively in real-world contexts. The latter of these two goals, using scientific knowledge in everyday life, is important for students’ participation in an increasingly scientific and technological world, and alludes to the notion of scientific literacy articulated in science education reform. In the National Science Education Standards, scientific literacy is defined as follows:
Scientific literacy means that a person can ask, find, or determine answers to questions derived from curiosity about everyday experiences. It means that a person has the ability to describe, explain, and predict natural phenomena. Scientific literacy entails being able to read with understanding articles about science in the popular press and to engage in social conversation about the validity of the conclusions. Scientific literacy implies that a person can identify scientific issues underlying national and local decisions and express positions that are scientifically and technologically informed. A literate citizen should be able to evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and the methods used to generate it. Scientific literacy also implies the capacity to pose and evaluate arguments based on evidence and to apply conclusions from such arguments appropriately. (NRC, 1996, pg. 22)
This definition illustrates the priority placed on students’ abilities to not only learn science, but also how to apply knowledge of scientific concepts and practices to social, cultural, political, and economic facets of life outside of school. This goal is very similar to that advocated in education for sustainable development. What is required, then, is a comprehensive science- and environmental education program that involves 1) learning the discipline’s core knowledge (i.e., scientific concepts), 2) learning the epistemological practices within the discipline (i.e., scientific practices) 3) engaging in those practices, and 4) learning to use knowledge and practices in everyday life (Hodson, 2003; NRC, 2009).
Current science education reform largely prioritizes and emphasizes the first three of these principles. It is often implicitly assumed that once students have gained proficiency with a particular disciplinary knowledge base, they will be able to apply that knowledge to novel situations where it is relevant. For example, it is assumed that by engaging in inquiry practices in the classroom to construct knowledge about science, students will be able to apply their scientific understandings and epistemological practices to real-world problems. Unfortunately, it is a false assumption that student learning about environmental issues, or about science in the context of environmental issues, inherently leads to students’ development of environmental and scientific literacy, even if grounded in effective teaching and learning practices. This issue of transfer remains one of, if not the greatest challenges facing science educators and science education researchers (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). The fundamental challenge of transfer is evidenced by the fact that, despite decades of reform in science and environmental education, classroom teaching and learning looks much as it did thirty years ago (Duschl, 1994; Grandy & Duschl, 2007) and little headway has been made in leading the world to a more environmentally-responsible and sustainable future.
Teachers play a crucial role in the treatment of environmental issues and other socioscientific issues, including in school science (Oulton, Dillon, & Grace, 2004). They must engage students in inquiry practices to not only support their learning about environmental issues, or about science in the context of environmental issues, but also for environmental decision-making and action. In many ways, the elementary classroom is particularly well-suited for teaching and learning about and for the environment. Elementary teachers, for example, have the capacity to more easily teach across subjects, which capitalizes on the interdisciplinary nature of environmental issues. Engaging students in these issues is, however, difficult for teachers precisely because of their multidisciplinary and often controversial nature (Gayford, 2002; Tal & Argaman, 2005). Elementary teachers already face many additional challenges, such as limited subject-matter knowledge, a lack of effective curriculum materials, and an institutional context in which science is largely deprioritized as a subject (Abell, 2007; Davis, Petish, & Smithey, 2006; Marx & Harris, 2006; Spillane, Diamond, Walker, Halverson, & Jita, 2001).
Teachers’ beliefs about supporting student learning about and for the environment through scientific inquiry remain relatively unexplored. Specifically, there is no existing research that examines how elementary teachers differentiate between the use of inquiry to support student learning about environmental issues, or about science in the context of environmental issues, and for decision-making and action about environmental issues. More research is needed to understand the goals teachers articulate for environmental education, the ways in which they pursue those goals through instruction, and the factors influencing their teaching practice. In this study, I investigate both how practicing elementary teachers differentiate between using scientific inquiry to promote student learning about the environment and environmental issues and for environmental decision-making and action (referred to as ‘learning about and for the environment’ in the remainder of this paper). I also describe teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and reported engagement in these inquiry-based instructional strategies. This study, which builds upon existing research in both science education and environmental education, makes an important contribution to existing research and will further informs the efforts of teacher educators and curriculum developers to support elementary teachers’ science teaching about and for the environment.
Literature review
Rickinson’s (2001) recent review of students’ learning through environmental education summarizes research relevant to students’ learning about and for the environment. To support students’ learning about and for the environment, as well as their development of scientific and environmental literacy, the fields of science education and environmental education must also synthesize and summarize relevant research on teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, and teaching practices. This is an effort that demands consideration of research across disciplines and professional fields, in this case science education and environmental education. These two fields, while maintaining separate identities, conferences, and professional publications, also share a great deal in common. If we are to advocate changes in the way teachers and students engage in teaching and learning about and for the environment in the context of science, such positions need to be informed by the work in which both science educators and environmental have engaged.
For this review, I drew from both environmental education and science education journals. In searching for and selecting publications to include in this review, I utilized four criteria. First, I included articles that possessed a significant, if not exclusive, focus on teachers in the context of teaching and learning about the environment. Second, I limited selections to empirical research, which included a variety of quantitative and qualitative studies. Third, I restricted the review to articles published since 1997. Fourth, I have also focused this review entirely on formal education contexts. The articles reviewed include research on teachers across the teacher professional continuum (Feiman-Nemser, 2001) and across elementary, middle, and secondary grade levels. This review therefore covers a broad range of what is known about teachers’ environmental education beliefs, knowledge, and practices at various points in their professional careers.
Teachers’ Knowledge, Beliefs, and Orientations toward Teaching
There is a long history of educational research focused on science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and general orientations as related to teaching (Abell, 2007; Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1996). In terms of knowledge, teachers must possess sufficient subject-matter knowledge, or knowledge of the content to be taught, as well as pedagogical knowledge, or knowledge of general instructional strategies and methods. However, as has now become a paradigmatic perspective within educational scholarship, it is the fusion of these forms of knowledge, referred to as pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986), that is the essential knowledge base that defines teaching. Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is essentially teachers’ understanding of how to teach particular content so as to maximize student learning. This perspective on PCK implies that it is a specialized knowledge form unique to teachers specific to the subjects they teach. Consistent with this perspective, science teachers possess a form of PCK unique to science teaching (Magnusson, Krajcik, & Borko, 1999).
There remains ongoing debate as to the distinction between knowledge and beliefs and implications of this epistemological and ontological discussion for teaching and learning. Whatever their inherent differences may be, both knowledge and beliefs are reified truth statements about the material world, symbolic encapsulations of lived experience (Barab & Roth, 2006; Greeno, 1998). More broadly defined as personal characteristics, teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and orientations are important parts of science teachers’ PCK and teachers’ capacity for instruction and pedagogical design (Brown, 2009; Magnusson, Krajcik, & Borko, 1999). As such, and most importantly, they serve as symbolic tools that can mediate teachers’ classroom practice (Roehrig, Kruse, & Kern, 2007). Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs are also an important influence on their environmental education-related practices, as shown in this review. In the three sections that follow, I first discuss teachers’ beliefs about and attitudes toward environmental education, their subject matter knowledge and environmental education practice, and teachers’ perceived barriers to engaging in environmental education.
Teachers’ Beliefs About and Attitudes toward Environmental Education Practice
Previous research shows that teachers generally want to incorporate environmental education and teaching about socioscientific issues into science instruction (Forbes & Davis, 2008; Kim & Fortner, 2006; Plevyak, Bendixen-Noe, Henderson, Roth, & Wilke, 2001; Sadler et al., 2006). In addition, teachers recognize that engaging in teaching and learning about the environment requires that they assume many roles similar to those described by highly effective science teachers in inquiry-oriented, project-based classrooms (Crawford, 2000; Dresner, 2002; May, 2000). Teachers at different stages of their careers support inquiry-based investigations about environmental issues differently (Tal & Argaman, 2005). In addition, given the current policy environment of schools, teachers often feel they are better able to teach about environmental issues than to provide students opportunity to engage in resolving them (Kim & Fortner, 2006).
Teachers with higher degrees of confidence in implementing environmental education practices are more likely to do so and their attitudes toward environmental education influence whether or not they engage in teaching and learning about the environment (Plevyak et al., 2001). Teachers who report being interested in environmental education-related teaching practices report engaging in these practices more (Zint & Peyton, 2001). Existing research suggests teachers do not lack an interest in environmental education and their interests are not a barrier to their environmental education-related practices (Kim & Fortner, 2006). This interest in environmental education, and infusion of environmental education practices into science teaching, is based on numerous different factors (Gayford, 1998; Sadler et al., 2006). Positive attitudes toward environmental education, however, may not be best predictor of current teaching practice but rather of a teacher’s interest in going beyond current practice (Kim & Fortner, 2006). The most significant predictor of teachers’ environmental education practices are an intent to engage in these practices and a self-perceived capacity to do so (Hsu & Roth, 1999; Zint, 2002).
Because environmental issues are situated within social, cultural, and economic concerns, these too must be addressed. However, teachers often shy away from value- and ethics-laden dimensions of science in their teaching (Forbes & Davis, 2008; Gayford, 2002; Sadler et al., 2006) and express a relative lack of interest in social and philosophical dimensions of scientific research (Kyburz-Graber, 1999). Their orientations are often mediated by identities constructed around scientific disciplines and through which perceived integrity of various disciplines are to be maintained in classrooms (Gayford, 2002). For example, Zint and Peyton (2001) found that health teachers, who teach about science in a more pragmatic context, are most interested in environmental education-related teaching practices while physics teachers, with strong ties to a particular scientific discipline, are often the least interested. Even when teachers ground science instruction in environmental issues that are of importance to the community, they often rely on ‘far away’ issues when discussing controversy (Christenson, 2004). Despite these limitations, teachers can come to view the benefits of exploring multiple viewpoints as outweighing possible drawbacks/controversy (Forbes & Davis, 2008; Sadler et al., 2006).
Subject Matter Knowledge and Environmental Education Practice
For elementary teachers, insufficient subject-matter knowledge and a lack of confidence in their subject-matter knowledge is an often-cited and well-researched issue (Abell, 2007; Anderson & Mitchener, 1994). Similarly, teachers report being concerned about their subject matter knowledge impacting their ability to engage in environmental education-related practices. Just as teachers who find environmental issues interesting and relevant are more likely to engage in such instruction, so too are teachers with more substantial subject matter knowledge (Littledyke, 1997; Sadler et al., 2006). In fact, teachers with particularly strong subject-matter knowledge for particular topics and concepts will emphasize them in teaching and learning about the environment (Fortner & Meyer, 2000). Preservice teachers with more limited subject-matter knowledge, especially preservice elementary teachers, may not apply conceptual understanding of science concepts to environmental issues in practice (Ekborg, 2003; Forbes & Davis, 2008).
Subject-matter knowledge about science and scientific inquiry is also related to teachers environmental education-related instructional practice. As Littledyke (1997) found in his study of elementary teachers in the UK, perspectives on science, science teaching, and environmental education were fundamentally intertwined. Teachers who viewed science as primarily a body of facts and scientific knowledge as static also tended to be those who possessed a less child-centered and more process-oriented view of science teaching, as well as having little interest in environmental issues and viewing them as unrelated to science. Teachers who were confident in their science subject-matter knowledge and valued scientific practice as a means of knowledge construction tended to be interested in environmental issues and teaching about the environment.
Perceived Barriers to Environmental Education
While teachers generally express a relatively high interest in environmental-based science instruction, they acknowledge that environmental education is not prioritized in school curricula and is therefore more difficult to teach. This presents a number of challenges for teachers seeking to engage in environmental education, particularly within science (Gayford, 2002; Kim & Fortner, 2006; Meichtry & Harrell, 2002; Zint & Peyton, 2001).
As is argued by many science educators, science curricula in the U.S. have often focused too heavily on addressing a wide variety of topics superficially rather than targeting a more limited number substantially. While teachers can learn to draw on science standards to support environmental education (Christenson, 2004) rather than view them as a barrier, the ‘breadth vs. depth’ issue is one that persists, especially at the secondary level (Sadler et al., 2006). Due to the already packed science curricula, as well as increasing measures aimed at increasing accountability and improving standardized test scores, there is often little time left for teaching and learning about and for the environment.
Elementary teachers often face a different challenge than a prescriptive science curriculum. While flexibility in elementary science curricula can more readily facilitate environmental education in contrast to secondary science curricula, it is increasingly apparent that science has become deemphasized at the elementary level (Marx & Harris, 2006; Spillane et al., 2001). If environmental education goals are prioritized at the elementary level, this could serve to reopen doors in the elementary curriculum for science. However, while certain environmentally-related topics are often taught at the elementary level (e.g., recycling, habitats, etc.) it is often the case that environmental education is not a fundamental dimension of the elementary curriculum either. Here, then, both science and the environment are somewhat deprioritized, neither providing a rich context for the teaching of the other.
In addition to time and curriculum limitations, teachers cite other challenges related to engaging in environmental education practices. First, instructional materials specifically geared towards environmental education are rarely available to teachers. Curriculum materials can be an important support in this regard. Science curriculum materials often deprioritize socioscientific issues and the ethical, moral, and cultural dimensions of science, even in STS-based science curricula (Hughes, 2000). Because of this, flexibly-adaptive curriculum materials are crucial in integrating environmental education in science (May, 2000). Teachers are more likely to transition to environmental education-related practices if curriculum materials are designed to supplement existing curricula (Kenney, Militana, & Donohue, 2003).
Other constraints are also important. While teachers often cite an interest in teaching about the environment, they often express concerns related to their limited understanding of environmental education practices. These concerns often trace back to perceived inadequacies in their own preparation and ongoing preparation. The availability of funding can serve to limit teachers’ abilities to engage in environmental education-oriented instruction. Finally, in an acknowledgement of the importance of informal and nonformal learning environments in supporting environmental education teaching and learning in formal education environments, they often note their limited access to off-site resources (Dresner, 2002).
Summary
Previous research suggests that teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about, as well as interests in, the environment and environmental education have important implications for their likely and actual environmental education-related practices in the classroom. Engaging in environmental education-related practices is largely dependent on two broad factors: their beliefs about these practices and perceived capacity to engage in them. Existing research suggests and many teachers do want to support student learning about and for the environment. In order to do so, however, they require requisite pedagogical content knowledge for environmental education, subject-matter knowledge, effective curriculum materials, and a school context in which environmental education is valued and supported.
Environmental Education through Teacher Education and Professional Development
While the discussion thus far has focused on teachers’ environmental education-related orientations, practices, and factors influencing both, another body of research has also focused on the role of environmental education in teacher education and professional development. Results from this research indicate that environmental education-focused teacher education and relevant inservice/professional development are important factors in teachers’ implementation of environmental education (Plevyak et al., 2001).
Teacher Education
Traditional 4-5 year undergraduate teacher education programs remain a primary means through which individuals enter the U.S. teaching corps. An explicit focus on environmental education in teacher education can help promote teachers’ environmental education-related orientations and practice (Alvarez, de la Fuente, Perales, & Garcia, 2002; Plevyak et al., 2001). This research has also shown that teacher educators generally want to incorporate environmental education into their teacher education courses and programs (Heimlich, Braus, Olivolo, McKeown-Ice, & Barringer-Smith, 2004; Powers, 2004). They also show awareness of the relationship between environmental education and environmental literacy and the importance of the latter as a learning goal for students. Teachers have acknowledged the importance of teacher education and professional development in learning how to engage in environmental education-related practices. Rather than being an explicit focus of teacher education, however, environmental education is most often incorporated into existing programmatic elements. The two most often utilized integration points for environmental education are methods courses, particularly science methods courses, and associated content courses that preservice teachers take (Heimlich et al., 2004).
One particularly important dimension of science teacher education is a focus on learning to teach science as inquiry. Formal teacher education programs often focus on various inquiry practices, such as asking questions, making predictions, using evidence, and, most importantly, constructing explanations. Argumentation is a crucial feature of scientific sense-making as well as decision-making about related issues, is often promoted as a foundational element of teacher education (Sadler, 2006). However environmental education and environmental education -related practices factor in to formal teacher education, it is clear that one-shot learning experiences may not do much to promote preservice teachers’ environmental education learning. To truly support preservice teachers to develop the confidence and capacity to engage in environmental education-related practices, a sustained, programmatic focus is required over time and across courses (Moseley, Reinke, & Bookout, 2002).
Focusing on environmental education in teacher education, however, is a challenging task. Many of the barriers teachers describe in implementing environmental education practices in the classroom are mirrored in teacher educators’ descriptions of their courses and programs. These include an already crowded curriculum, the impact of state and national content standards and teacher education mandates, among others (Powers, 2004). Even when environmental education-related practices are prioritized, they may result in perceived incongruence between teacher education experiences and actual classroom practice. For example, a predominant culture of teaching may promote preservice teachers’ need for consensus rather than challenging one another’s ideas (Ekborg, 2003). Most teacher educators acknowledge that they are not well-preparing teachers to teach environmental education (McKeown-Ice, 2000).
Professional Development
Professional development has also emerged as an important context for promoting teachers’ learning about environmental education and the implementation of environmental education practices in science classrooms. Unlike teacher education programs, inservice professional development is often focused more specifically on particular pedagogical and content domains. As a result, such programs can be designed explicitly around environmental education-related topics and practices. Examples of such programs include ENVISION (Bell, Shepardson, Harbor, Klagges, Burgess, Meyer, & Leuenberger, 2003; Shepardson, Harbon, Bell, Meyer, Leuenberger, Klagges, & Burgess, 2003; Wee, Shepardson, Fast, & Harbor, 2007), Students as Scientists: Pollution Prevention through Education (Comeaux & Huber, 2001), and Teachers in the Woods (Dresner, 2002).
Environmental education focused professional development experiences are also uniquely suited to simultaneously support teachers’ learning about authentic scientific inquiry and their implementation of inquiry practices in their classrooms (Bell et al., 2003). This is important because many studies have shown that teachers struggle to translate ideas about inquiry into classroom practice (Bryan & Abell, 1999; Crawford, 1999; Southerland & Gess-Newsome, 1999; Zembal-Saul, Blumenfeld, & Krajcik, 2000). Through participation in authentic scientific investigations, teachers develop both better understandings about the nature of scientific research and capacity to support their students in undertaking such investigations (Haefner & Zembal-Saul, 2004; Windschitl, 2003). These findings are supported by environmental education research reviewed here.
What, then, are important features of such professional development programs? First, authentic scientific investigations, often designed, planned, and undertaken by teachers, helps them develop more robust knowledge of relevant scientific concepts and content. Second, modeling inquiry pedagogy in environmental education context, and providing teachers with an opportunity to develop these abilities on their own, helps promote transfer of these methods into classrooms with students (Kenney, Militana, & Donohue, 2003). Finally, as many studies in science education and other areas have indicated, teachers benefit greatly from collaboration with their peers, including in learning environmental education-related subject matter and to engage in environmental education practices (Christenson, 2004; Kenney, Militana, & Donohue, 2003; Pruneau, Dayon, Langis, Vasseur, Ouellet, McLaughlin, Boudreau, & Martin, 2006).
Summary
Previous research suggests that environmental education can be effectively promoted in teacher learning contexts such as formal teacher education and professional development. Promoting teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for scientific inquiry is already a primary goal of science teacher education and professional development. These same skills are also crucial for teachers in supporting students’ engagement in project-based environmental education. As such, promoting teacher learning for teaching science as inquiry in formal teacher education is already indirectly supporting teachers’ learning to address environmental and sustainability issues through inquiry-oriented science instruction. However, a more explicit focus on environmental education presents many challenges to science teacher educators. Professional development remains the most direct route to providing teachers opportunities to engage in inquiry-oriented, project-based investigations about environmental issues and to develop their capacity to engage students in similar learning experiences.
Study Design and Methods
The goal of this study is to investigate how elementary teachers support student learning about and for the environment through scientific inquiry. Toward that end, I ask the following questions in this study:
1. How do elementary teachers differentiate between inquiry practices designed to support student learning about and for the environment?
2. How do elementary teachers describe their beliefs about, perceived capacities, and use of scientific inquiry to support student learning about and for the environment?
3. What relationships exist between elementary teachers’ professional experiences (e.g., teacher education, professional development, and classroom experience) and their beliefs about, perceived capacities, and use of scientific inquiry to support student learning about and for the environment?
Understanding how teachers learn to teach environmental science and engage in environmentally-oriented teaching practices, as well as relevant mediating factors, will help science teacher educators and environmental educators better support them to do so.
To address these questions, I developed a survey instrument and administered it to a random sample of elementary teachers in the university community school district and each of the surrounding school districts. In the sections that follow, I first describe the survey instrument that I developed, the sampling methods I used to administer it, and the quantitative methods used to analyze the resulting data.
Survey Instrument
The survey instrument (Appendices A and B), which was developed specifically for this study, was designed around three sets of 10 corollary questions (30 items total). These 10 questions were explicitly aligned with scientific inquiry practices articulated in current science education reform (NRC, 1996, 2000). First, five of the 10 questions represented the five essential features of inquiry articulated in Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000). These include engaging students in scientifically-oriented questions, gathering and organizing data and evidence, making evidence-based explanations, evaluating explanations, and communicating explanations. These five questions were meant to provide a measure of teachers’ use of inquiry to support student learning about environmental issues. Second, I included five additional questions to represent the five features of design in science (NRC, 1996). These included identifying and describing, as well as proposing, implementing, evaluating, and communicating proposed solutions to environmental issues. These five questions were meant to provide a measure of teaching for environmental decision-making. These two sets of survey items are shown in Table 1.
Table 1.
Survey Items to Measure Inquiry Practices to Promote Student Learning about and for the Environment
| |Learning About |Learning For |
|1. |…ask questions and make predictions about environmental |…identify and describe environmental issues. |
| |issues. | |
|2. |…perform investigations and gather data about environmental |…propose reasonable solutions to environmental issues. |
| |issues. | |
|3. |…construct explanations from evidence about environmental |…implement proposed solutions to environmental issues. |
| |issues. | |
|4. |…connect their explanations to existing ideas about |…evaluate proposed solutions to environmental issues. |
| |environmental issues, whether their own or those in the wider| |
| |community. | |
|5. |…defend explanations about environmental issues and explore |…communicate proposed solutions to environmental issues. |
| |differing viewpoints about them. | |
Together, these two sets of questions provide a measure of inquiry practices to promote student learning both about and for the environment and were the primary focus of research question #1.
The survey was also designed to measure teachers’ beliefs about, perceived capacity, and actual practices related to the use of inquiry to engage students in learning about and for the environment. Previous education research has shown teachers’ beliefs and perceived capacities to be important factors in their classroom practices (Hsu & Roth, 1999; Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1996; Roehrig, Kruse, & Kern, 2007; Tal & Argaman, 2005; Zint, 2002). Additionally, more broadly defined, they are constituent elements of teachers’ capacity for pedagogical design (Brown, 2009). Teachers pedagogical design capacities represent their abilities to mobilize requisite resources (knowledge, beliefs, curriculum materials, etc.) in light of context dependent affordances and constraints to effectively promote student learning. .
Teachers were asked to respond to the same 10 survey items from Table 1 separately in regard to their beliefs, perceived capacities, and classroom practices. First, respondents were asked to respond to the statement, “As part of my science teaching, I should support my students to…”, which was included as a measure of teachers’ beliefs. Second, they were asked to respond to the statement, “I have the necessary knowledge, skills, and resources to support my students to…”, which was included as a measure of perceived instructional capacity. Finally, in the third set of 10 questions, they were asked to respond to the statement “As part of my science teaching, I currently support my students to…”, which was included as a measure of self-reported classroom practice.
These three sets of these 10 survey items provide a measure of teachers’ beliefs about the use of these practices, perceived capacities to engage students in them, and frequencies with which they report engaging students in them. These constructs were the primary focus of research question #2.
In addition to these three sets of 10 questions, the survey instrument included a series of general questions related to teaching about and for the environment. Specifically, it contained demographic questions to characterize the grade levels respondents teach, their years of teaching experience, how much time they devote to teaching about the environment and environmental issues in the context of science, as well as others. The survey items about teachers’ professional preparation, teaching experience, and professional development opportunities provide a series of independent variables through which to investigate relationships with the other two sets of constructs (research questions 1 and 2). These relationships are the primary focus of research question #3.
Once developed and made available online, I invited five elementary teachers to pilot test the survey and provide feedback on the content and organization of the survey. These five teachers were randomly selected from members of the population who were not selected to be in the survey sample. They were each contacted via email and asked to record their feedback and comments on the survey. In addition to more general feedback, they were specifically asked to document any technical problems they experienced with the online survey and highlight any survey items that were confusing, unclear, or otherwise problematic. These three teachers reported finding the content, wording, and organization of the survey items to be effective. However, they identified a number of technical problems with the online survey that were subsequently resolved. These five teachers were provided a small stipend for their assistance.
Data Collection
In this study, the survey population was defined as all elementary teachers (k-5) in the following school districts: Ann Arbor, Chelsea, Dexter, Plymouth-Canton, Milan, Saline, Whitmore Lake, and Willow Run. To create the population from which I drew my sample, I referred to publicly-available faculty listings in the summer of 2007. First, I identified all elementary schools in the school districts of interest. Second, I visited individual websites for these schools and, in most cases, was able to obtain faculty lists and other relevant information. In cases where faculty information was not included on school websites, I used searchable directories on school district websites to identify elementary teachers in particular schools. I also contacted building administrators to obtain this information and confirm faculty listings. As a result, I was able to create a sampling frame of all elementary teachers in the population (N=752)[1], thereby minimizing errors due to noncoverage (Couper, 2000; Dillman, 1991).
Using simple random sampling, I selected 250 teachers from the sampling frame. To do so, I used a random number generator to identify 250 unique numbers between 0 and 752, each of which corresponded to an individual teacher in the sample population. These 250 teachers were invited to complete the survey. On three separate occasions, these teachers were sent an invitation email and letter (Appendices C, D, and E). These invitation attempts occurred in October and November of 2007, and then in February of 2008. Mailings were sent to their school addresses and emails were sent to their school email addresses. As an incentive for completing the survey, teachers were entered into a drawing. From the survey respondents, six teachers were randomly selected to receive $50. These teachers were selected and mailed checks to their school addresses in May of 2008.
The teachers were able to complete the survey online or in hard copy form and return it in the mail. In the first and second invitation, the teachers were asked to complete the survey online. In the third and final invitation, teachers were given the opportunity to complete a paper version of the survey and return it using a self-addressed, stamped envelope. In effect, this approach became a mixed-mode design with choice of completion method (Couper, 2000), meaning the survey was available in multiple formats and respondents were given a choice of which they preferred to complete. The content and design of both surveys were identical, though there were some aesthetic differences simply due to affordances and constraints of the two modes used. Both version of the survey are included in Appendices A and B.
Of the initial 250 teachers in the sample, 13 had moved out of the sample population. These teachers were identified by undeliverable email and mail and responses from colleagues, school staff, or administrators. Of the remaining 237 teachers, I received 121 responses for a 52% response rate. Of these 121 responses, 72% of teachers completed the survey online while 28% completed the paper version. Of the 121 teachers who completed the survey, 10 chose not to have their responses included in the dataset. An additional 25 teachers reported not teaching science in their particular school and curricular contexts. The data for this study is therefore drawn from 86 elementary teachers from the sample population who completed the survey and reported teaching science.
Finally, this study was submitted for review to the University of Michigan Institutional Review Board. Upon review, it was deemed exempt (Appendix F) as “research involving the use of educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures, interview procedures or observation of public behavior” for which respondents’ identities are not saved or disclosed.
Data Analysis
To analyze the survey data, I first performed factor analysis to confirm the theoretical foundations of the constructs around which the survey was designed. Next, I obtained reliability coefficients that to assess the unidimensionality or multidimensionality of the data. Finally, I performed statistical analyses on the survey data to answer my research questions. Specifically, I addressed my research questions by examining differences in means between constructs of interest using independent- and paired-samples t-tests, as well as ANOVA.
Factor Analysis
I performed a factor analysis on the 30 survey items to assess the degree to which the three sets of questions measured teachers’ beliefs about, perceived capacities for, and reported use of inquiry to promote students’ learning about and for the environment. The factor analysis method used was principal axis factoring with varimax rotation. A high Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (0.863) confirmed that observed correlations between pairs of variables could be explained by the other variables. The null hypothesis in factor analysis is that there is no correlation between variables of interest. Bartlett's test of sphericity is used to test the null hypothesis. Here, Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant (p < 0.001), suggesting that the relationship between the variables is strong and factor analysis is appropriate given the survey data.
Results from the factor analysis of these 30 items identified three distinct factors of 10 items each, consistent with the survey’s design of three unique sets of 10 questions each designed to measure teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacity, and class practice. The rotated factor matrix for these questions, which illustrates survey item loading on individual factors, is shown in Table 2.
Table 2
Rotated Factor Matrix for 3 Sets of 10 Questions
| |Factor |
| |1 |2 |3 |
|As part of my science teaching, I should support my students to… |
|1. |…identify and describe environmental issues. | |.701 | |
|2. |…ask questions and make predictions about environmental issues. | |.665 | |
|3. |…perform investigations and gather data about environmental issues. | |.871 | |
|4. |…construct explanations from evidence about environmental issues. | |.888 | |
|5. |…connect their explanations to existing ideas about environmental issues, whether their own or | |.821 | |
| |those in the wider community. | | | |
|6. |…defend explanations about environmental issues and explore differing viewpoints about them. | |.782 | |
|7. |…propose reasonable solutions to environmental issues. | |.664 | |
|8. |…implement proposed solutions to environmental issues. | |.702 | |
|9. |…evaluate proposed solutions to environmental issues. | |.746 | |
|10. |…communicate proposed solutions to environmental issues. | |.856 | |
|I have the necessary knowledge, skills, and resources to support my students to… |
|1. |…identify and describe environmental issues. |.693 | | |
|2. |…ask questions and make predictions about environmental issues. |.742 | | |
|3. |…perform investigations and gather data about environmental issues. |.763 | | |
|4. |…construct explanations from evidence about environmental issues. |.792 | | |
|5. |…connect their explanations to existing ideas about environmental issues, whether their own or |.776 | | |
| |those in the wider community. | | | |
|6. |…defend explanations about environmental issues and explore differing viewpoints about them. |.700 | | |
|7. |…propose reasonable solutions to environmental issues. |.740 | | |
|8. |…implement proposed solutions to environmental issues. |.766 | | |
|9. |…evaluate proposed solutions to environmental issues. |.833 | | |
|10. |…communicate proposed solutions to environmental issues. |.641 | | |
|As part of my science teaching, I currently support my students to… |
|1. |…identify and describe environmental issues. | | |.706 |
|2. |…ask questions and make predictions about environmental issues. | | |.767 |
|3. |…perform investigations and gather data about environmental issues. | | |.705 |
|4. |…construct explanations from evidence about environmental issues. | | |.828 |
|5. |…connect their explanations to existing ideas about environmental issues, whether their own or | | |.773 |
| |those in the wider community. | | | |
|6. |…defend explanations about environmental issues and explore differing viewpoints about them. | | |.769 |
|7. |…propose reasonable solutions to environmental issues. | | |.831 |
|8. |…implement proposed solutions to environmental issues. | | |.777 |
|9. |…evaluate proposed solutions to environmental issues. | | |.777 |
|10. |…communicate proposed solutions to environmental issues. | | |.636 |
Rotation converged in 7 iterations.
Values < 0.5 have been suppressed
Together, these three factors accounted for 68.85% of the variance in the survey results, as shown in Table 3.
Table 3
Factor Analysis: Total Variance Explained
|Factor |Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings |
| |Total |% of Variance |Cumulative % |
|1 |6.928 |23.093 |23.093 |
|2 |6.894 |22.979 |46.072 |
|3 |6.834 |22.778 |68.850 |
|4 |1.248 |4.160 |73.010 |
|5 |1.085 |3.616 |76.626 |
Two additional factors are shown in Table 3 with Eigenvalues greater than 1 (factors 4 and 5). These account for only an additional 8% of variance and were found not to be significant to the findings. First, as shown in the scree plot in Figure 1, the fourth factor forms the elbow of the plot, suggesting the first three factors are the only significant factors.
[pic]
Figure 1. Scree Plot for Factor Analysis of 30 Survey Items (3 Sets of 10 questions)
Second, I performed Monte Carlo simulation to calculate Eigenvalues for 1000 randomly generated samples (30 items, 86 respondents). Random Eigenvalues and actual Eigenvalues from the sample are shown in Table 4.
Table 4
Comparison of Eigenvalues from Factor Analysis and Parallel Analysis
|Factor |Actual Eigenvalue |Randomly-generated Eigenvalue |Decision |
|1 |6.928 |2.3191 |accept |
|2 |6.894 |2.1062 |accept |
|3 |6.834 |1.9531 |accept |
|4 |1.248 |1.8250 |reject |
For the first, second, and third factors, actual Eiganvalues from the survey sample were higher than randomly generated ones, confirming these first three factors should be retained for analysis. The fourth randomly generated Eigenvalue was greater than the fourth actual Eigenvalue from the sample, suggesting it and all subsequent factors should not be included. This analysis confirms the presence of three unique factors that correspond to the three sets of 10 questions around which the survey instrument was designed.
Reliability Analysis
Reliability analyses were also performed to assess internal reliability of the three sets of 10 questions. I obtained Cronbach’s alpha values for each of the three sets of 10 individually. In each of these four cases, the Cronbach’s alpha score was 0.95 or above. I also performed reliability analyses for each of the 10 individual questions about inquiry practices across the three sets in which they were used. Cronbach’s α values for these items are shown in Table 5.
Table 5
α Values for 10 Inquiry Practices Survey Items
| |Survey Item |α Value |
|1. |…identify and describe environmental issues. |0.737 |
|2. |…ask questions and make predictions about environmental issues. |0.761 |
|3. |…perform investigations and gather data about environmental issues. |0.682 |
|4. |…construct explanations from evidence about environmental issues. |0.682 |
|5. |…connect their explanations to existing ideas about environmental issues, whether their own or those in |0.714 |
| |the wider community. | |
|6. |…defend explanations about environmental issues and explore differing viewpoints about them. |0.695 |
|7. |…propose reasonable solutions to environmental issues. |0.711 |
|8. |…implement proposed solutions to environmental issues. |0.756 |
|9. |…evaluate proposed solutions to environmental issues. |0.698 |
|10. |…communicate proposed solutions to environmental issues. |0.626 |
These values provide a measure of how reliable each of the inquiry practices were across the three dimensions for which they were used (teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and classroom practice). Although five of the ten values for individual inquiry items are slightly below 0.70, these reliability statistics suggest that these constructs were internally-consistent and reasonably reliable measures of the constructs of interest (Nunnaly & Bernstein, 1994).
Finally, in the survey, the term ‘environmental issues’ was defined as “problems such as pollution (air, water, and soil), biodiversity loss and endangered species, resource depletion, and habitat loss”. In the survey, teachers were asked the degree to which they agreed with this definition (item 3a.) and, if they so chose, to describe any differences in this and their own definition of environmental issues (item 3b.). A majority of teachers, 89.9%, indicated they ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ with this definition (on a response scale 1-7 in which ‘strongly agree’ was the highest possible response). Only 3 teachers utilized question 3b to further describe how their own definitions of the term ‘environmental issues’ differed from that provided in the survey. In short, the teachers’ responses to items 3a and 3b. indicate a strong agreement on the fundamental construct of interest in this research.
Results
In the sections that follow, I first provide an overview of the characteristics of teachers who completed the survey and then present findings by research question.
Characteristics of Teachers in the Study Sample
The elementary teachers who completed the survey were from 37 schools spread across 8 school districts in and around a university community. The teachers were asked to report which grade(s) they taught. The most commonly taught grade-level was fourth grade (47%), while kindergarten (14%) and fifth-grade (10%) were least commonly taught. Additionally, approximately 20% of the teachers reported teaching more than one grade.
The teachers were asked to report the number of years that they had been teaching. The mean number of years teaching experience was 15.8 (SD=9.12) with a range from three to 38 years. However, the median number of years teaching experience was 13 and the mode was 8. This indicates that the sample of teachers was skewed toward the lower end of the distribution. In short, respondents tended to be less experienced teachers, though no teachers in the sample were first- or second-year teachers.
Teachers were also asked to approximate how many hours each year they teach about environmental issues in the context of science. The mean number of hours reported was 15.1 (SD=15.2) though this value ranged from one hour to 80 hours. The median number of hours was 10 and the mode was 20 hours, again suggesting that the distribution was skewed towards the lower end of the range. Over half of the respondents therefore reported teaching about the environment in the context of science less than 10 hours per year (55%) while 79% reported doing so 20 hours or less per year.
Teachers were also asked to report whether or not they had taken an environmental education methods course, how many environmental science/studies courses they had taken, and how many environmental education professional development experiences they had participated in. Many teachers reported having taken at least one environmental science course as part of their postsecondary education and/or teacher education (60%). Relatively fewer teachers, however, reported completing a course on environmental education teaching methods (20%) or participating in a professional development experience focused on environmental education (40%).
These descriptive statistics provide important insight into the respondents’ professional contexts and experiences. Also, as shown in subsequent sections, they proved important for identifying trends in the teachers’ reported beliefs about, perceived capacities, and actual use of scientific inquiry to promote student learning about and for the environment.
Research Question 1 – Differentiating Between Promoting Student Learning About and For the Environment
A primary purpose of this study was to ascertain the degree to which elementary teachers emphasized using scientific inquiry to promote student learning about and for the environment. In research question 1, I asked ‘How do elementary teachers differentiate between inquiry practices designed to support student learning about and for the environment?’.
First, in survey item #4, the teachers were asked to respond to the statement “It is important for elementary students to not only learn about environmental issues but also how to act on and attempt to solve them”. On a response scale (1-7) in which ‘strongly agree’ was the highest possible response, over half of the teachers (57%) indicated they strongly agreed with this statement. An additional 35% indicated they ‘agree’ (second-highest response) while an additional 7% indicated they ‘somewhat agree’ (third-highest response). Together, these responses accounted for all but one of the teachers who completed the survey. This finding suggests that the elementary teachers in this study overwhelmingly agreed that it is important for students to not only learn about environmental issues, but also to learn how to act on and attempt to solve them.
Further analyses for research question 1 involved comparing responses to the 10 survey items for inquiry practices that were consistent across the 3 dimensional question sets that measured teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and reported use of scientific inquiry to promote student learning about and for the environment. One set of these 10 inquiry practices focused on learning about the environment (5 items) while the other emphasized learning for decision-making and acting upon environmental issues (5 items), as shown previously in Table 5. I compare findings from these two sets of five inquiry practices in the aggregate (across measures of teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and classroom practice), as well as within each of the three sets of 10 questions for teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and actual practices. Statistics from these analyses are shown in Table 6.
Table 6
Results from Paired-Samples T-tests Comparing Elementary Teachers’ Inquiry Practices to Support Student Learning about and for the Environment
| | |xabout |xfor |t |
|Pearson Correlation |0.876 |0.840 |0.875 |0.863 |
|Sig. (2-tailed) |.001 |.001 |.001 |.001 |
|N |86 |86 |85 |85 |
Second, recall that in survey item #4, the teachers were asked to respond to the statement “It is important for elementary students to not only learn about environmental issues but also how to act on and attempt to solve them”. Teachers who reported agreeing more strongly with item #4 also reported beliefs, perceived capacities, and classroom practices that were more oriented toward the use of inquiry to promote student learning about environmental issues, F(3,84) = 4.6, p = 0.005, ω2 = 0.13, and for decision-making and action F(3,84) = 4.3, p = 0.007, ω2 = 0.12. In short, elementary teachers who reported more strongly agreeing that students should learn about and for the environment also reported beliefs, perceived capacities, and classroom practices that were more aligned with these goals.
In sum, these results suggest that teachers did not fundamentally distinguish between engaging students in scientific inquiry to promote learning about and for the environment. Additionally, there were positive, significant relationships between these variables. Teachers who prioritized engaging in inquiry to promote student learning about the environment tended to similarly prioritize engaging in inquiry to promote student learning for environmental decision-making.
Research Question 2 –Teachers’ Beliefs About, Perceived Capacities for, and Reported Use of Scientific Inquiry to Promote Student Learning About and For the Environment
I also sought to investigate the degree to which elementary teachers believe they should support student learning about and for the environment through scientific inquiry, their perceived capacity to do so, and how often they reported engaging in these practices. In research question 2, I asked, ‘How do elementary teachers describe their beliefs about, perceived capacities, and actual classroom practices for the use of inquiry practices to support student learning about and for the environment?’. To answer research question 2, I drew upon the combined scores for the 10 inquiry practices within each of the three dimensions measuring teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and actual classroom practice.
Scores for teachers’ beliefs were highest, followed by teachers’ perceived capacities and, finally, teachers’ actual classroom practices. The mean scores were 5.94 (SD=0.90), 5.26 (SD=1.08), and 4.8 (SD=1.31), respectively. Differences between these three scores were significant. Scores for teachers’ beliefs were significantly higher than scores for their perceived capacities, t(86) = 6.45, p < .001, d = 0.31, and their reported actual classroom practices, t(85) = 8.36, p < .001, d = 0.92. Similarly, scores for perceived capacity were significantly higher than for their reported teaching practices, t(86) = 4.07, p < .001, d = 0.70.
These findings suggest that teachers most strongly believe that they should engage in scientific inquiry to promote student learning about and for the environment. However, they also felt less capable of doing so (perceived capacities), suggesting a mismatch between the practices in which they felt they should engage and their perceived capacities to engage in them. Finally, the teachers’ actual reported classroom practice was lower than both their beliefs and perceived capacities. This finding suggests that the degree to which they report engaging students in these inquiry practices is significantly less than their perceived capacities and beliefs.
Research Question 3 - Relationships between Teacher Characteristics and Teachers’ Beliefs About, Perceived Capacities for, and Reported Use of Scientific Inquiry to Promote Student Learning About and For the Environment
Last, I also investigated relationships between specific teacher characteristics and their beliefs, perceived capacities, and classroom practices as discussed in the previous sections. In research question 3, I asked, ‘What relationships exist between elementary teachers’ professional characteristics (e.g., teacher education, professional development, and classroom experience) and their beliefs about, perceived capacities, and actual classroom practices for the use of inquiry practices to support student learning about and for the environment?’. To answer research question 3, I again drew upon the combined scores for the 10 inquiry practices within each of the three dimensions measuring teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and reported classroom practice. I then analyzed differences in these scores based on teachers’ responses to demographic questions. Before discussing findings in detail, I present a brief summary of statistically-significant relationships in Table 8.
Table 8
Summary of Statistically-significant Relationships (x) Between Demographic Variables and Teachers’ Beliefs, Perceived Capacities, and Reported Use of Inquiry to Promote Students’ Learning about and for the Environment.
| |Beliefs |Perceived |Reported |
| | |Capacities |Practice |
|# hours/year teaching about environmental issues |x |x |x |
|# years teaching experience | |x |x |
|Environmental education teaching methods course |x | | |
|# environmental science/studies courses | | | |
|# professional development focused on environmental issues. | |x | |
As shown in Table 8, statistically-significant relationships were identified in four of the five demographic variables measured in the survey.
Recall that teachers were asked to estimate how many hours each year they teach about environmental issues. Results suggest strong relationships between teachers’ experience in the classroom and their beliefs, perceived capacities, and actual classroom practice, as shown in Table 9.
Table 9
Correlations between Time Spent Teaching About Environmental Issues in the Context of Science and Teachers’ Beliefs, Perceived Capacities, and Reported Classroom Practice
| |Beliefs |Perceived Capacities|Reported Practice |
|Pearson Correlation |.302(**) |.411(**) |.506(**) |
|Sig. (2-tailed) |.005 |.000 |.000 |
|N |85 |85 |85 |
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Not surprisingly, teachers who reported spending more time teaching about and for the environment through scientific inquiry also reported more often engaging students in the 10 inquiry practices as part of their instruction (reported practice). However, this trend was also consistent for teachers’ beliefs and perceived capacities, though these correlations were less strong than for teachers’ reported practice. In short, then, elementary teachers who reported more time spent teaching about and for the environment tended to a) believe doing so was more important, b) perceive themselves to be more capable of doing so, and c) more often reported engaging students in inquiry practices as part of their teaching.
Teachers were also asked to report how many years of teaching experience they had. Results from the survey suggest relationships between general teaching experience and perceived capacities and actual classroom practice, though not for their beliefs, as shown in Table 10.
Table 10
Correlations between Teaching Experience and Teachers’ Beliefs, Perceived Capacities, and Reported Classroom Practice
| |Beliefs |Perceived Capacities|Reported Practice |
|Pearson Correlation |.064 |.251(*) |.253(*) |
|Sig. (2-tailed) |.559 |.021 |.020 |
|N |86 |85 |85 |
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
As shown in Table 10, there was not a statistically-significant correlation between years teaching experience and teachers’ beliefs about engaging students in inquiry practices to promote learning about environmental issues and scientific concepts or for decision-making and action. However, there was a relatively weak, albeit significant relationship between, on the one hand, teaching experience and, on the other, teachers’ perceived capacities and actual classroom practices. In short, more experienced teachers felt they were more capable of engaging in inquiry to promote student learning about and for the environment. They also reported engaging students in these practices more often.
There were important observed relationships between teachers’ opportunities for learning, both preservice and inservice, and their beliefs, perceived capacities, and reported engagement in inquiry to promote student learning about and for the environment. First, elementary teachers were asked to report whether or not they had taken an environmental education methods course. One out of five (20%) teachers reported having taken such a course. For elementary teachers who reported taking an environmental education methods course, there was no statistically-significant relationship between their perceived capacities, t(83) = 1.56, p = 0.12, d = 0.21, or reported classroom practices, t(83) = 1.18, p = 0.24, d = 0.19. However, those who reported taking an environmental education methods course believed more strongly that they should support student learning about and for the environment through scientific inquiry than respondents who had not taken such a course, t(83) = 2.22, p = 0.03, d = 0.49.
Teachers were also asked how many professional development experiences they had participated in which had focused on environmental education. The teachers reported having taken anywhere from 1 to 5 such courses (M=1.85, SD=1.35). There were no significant relationships between the number of such professional development experiences the elementary teachers reported and either their beliefs, F(4,80) = 1.55, p = 0.20, ω2 < 0.01, or reported classroom practice, F(4,81) = 2.42, p = 0.055, ω2 = 0.06. However, elementary teachers who reported having more professional development experiences focused on environmental education (M=1.85, SD =.15) reported a greater perceived capacity to engage students in inquiry practices to learn about the environment and for environmental decision-making, F(4,81) = 3.24, p = 0.016, ω2 = 0.10. This finding suggests that the more professional development experiences teachers participate in that are specifically focused on environmental education, the more capable they reported feeling in their knowledge, skills, and resources to engage students in inquiry practices to promote learning about environmental issues and scientific concepts, as well as for decision-making and action.
Teachers were also asked to report the number of environmental science and/or studies course they had taken. The teachers reported having taken anywhere from 1 to 5 such courses (M=2.34, SD=1.4). However, there were no significant relationships between the number of environmental science and/or studies courses elementary teachers had taken and either their beliefs, F(4,80) = 1.11, p = 0.36, ω2 = 0.06, perceived capacities, F(4,80) = 2.48, p = 0.051, ω2 = 0.09, or classroom practices, F(4,80) = 2.33, p = 0.063, ω2 = 0.02. These findings suggest that there were no significant differences in teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and reported engagement of students in inquiry practices to promote learning about environmental issues and scientific concepts, as well as for decision-making and action, based on the number of environmental science and/or studies courses they had taken.
Summary of Results
The main findings from this study are threefold. First, the elementary teachers in this study did not articulate a statistically-significant difference between, on the one hand, engaging students in scientific inquiry to promote their learning about the environment and, on the other, for environmental decision-making and action. However, second, their beliefs, perceived capacities, and degree to which they reported engaging students in inquiry to promote student learning about and for the environment did differ. Scores for the elementary teachers’ beliefs were highest, followed by their perceived capacities and, finally, their reported classroom practices. Finally, third, important, statistically-significant relationships were observed between background and demographic variables and the elementary teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and reported use of inquiry to promote students’ learning about and for the environment. Both teaching experience and the number of hours spent teaching about the environment were positively related to teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and classroom practice. Results also showed that environmental education methods courses were positively-related to elementary teachers’ beliefs and that professional development focused on environmental education were positively-related to elementary teachers’ perceived capacities.
Discussion
Teachers play a crucial role in supporting students’ development of scientific and environmental literacy. In science, they should engage students in inquiry practices to not only support their learning about environmental issues, or about science in the context of environmental issues, but also for decision-making and action about environmental issues in the context of science (Hodson, 2003). However, this is a challenging task for elementary teachers who, particularly if they are inexperienced, may not possess requisite beliefs and/or capacities to engage in effective and substantive science teaching practice (Abell, 2007; Davis, Petish, & Smithey, 2006; Morton & Dalton, 2007). The specific purpose of this study was to further investigate elementary teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and reported classroom practice about and for the environment, as well as observed relationships between these and other important factors. In the following sections, I revisit main findings from this study, discuss recommendations for supporting teachers to engage in inquiry-oriented science teaching to support student learning about and for the environment, and articulate questions for future research.
Research Question 1 – Differentiating Between Promoting Student Learning About and For the Environment
In research question 1, I asked ‘How do elementary teachers differentiate between inquiry practices designed to support student learning about and for the environment?’. Findings suggest that the elementary teachers in this study considered both to be important and did not differentiate between the two goals in terms of their beliefs, perceived capacities, or reported teaching practices. On the one hand, this finding supports previous research, which has shown that teachers want to teach about the environment (Kim & Fortner, 2006; Plevyak et al., 2001; Sadler et al., 2006). Previous studies have also shown that teachers often feel less able to engage students in decision-making and action about environmental issues than they do to support students’ learning of science content. Findings here extend existing research on teachers and environmental education by illustrating the compatible goals teachers hold for not only supporting student learning about environmental issues and their underlying scientific dimensions, but also for supporting the development of students’ decision-making capacities.
Research Question 2 –Teachers’ Beliefs About, Perceived Capacities For, and Reported Use of Scientific Inquiry to Promote Student Learning About and For the Environment
In research question 2, I asked, ‘How do elementary teachers describe their beliefs about, perceived capacities, and use of scientific inquiry to support student learning about and for the environment?’. Significant differences existed between teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and reported classroom practice. Scores for teachers’ beliefs were highest, followed by perceived capacities and, finally, classroom practices. These findings suggest that elementary teachers do not report possessing the knowledge, skills, and resources to engage students in inquiry practices to learn about and for the environment in the ways that they believe they should. Furthermore, they report actually engaging students in these inquiry practices less often then they believe they have the capacity to do so. I next discuss teachers’ perceived capacities and classroom practice.
Teachers’ Perceived Capacities
Findings from other studies suggest that the most significant predictors of teachers’ environmentally-oriented teaching practices were teachers’ intentions to engage in such practices and their perceived capacity to do so (Hsu & Roth, 1999; Zint, 2002). As previously discussed in research question #1 regarding promoting student learning about and for the environment, the elementary teachers in this study reported beliefs and intentions to engage in inquiry to promote student learning. However, they reported perceived capacities to engage in these practices that were lower than their desired practices. These findings illuminate a disconnect between the teaching practices these teachers believe they should be engaging in and their perceived capacities to actually engage in those practices.
Previous research provides some evidence as to what limitations teachers perceive in their capacities to engage in environmental education practices. Even if teachers believe strongly that they should support student learning about and for the environment, they view environmental education as a deprioritized component of school curricula (Christenson, 2004). As such, they of often also report lacking effective curriculum materials to support student learning about and for the environment (Hughes, 2000; Kenney, Militana, & Donohue, 2003; May, 2000). Finally, even if teachers are expected to teach about and for the environment, and have curriculum materials that enable them to do so, they often report a lack of confidence in their subject-matter knowledge (Ekborg, 2003; Fortner & Meyer, 2000; Littledyke, 1997) or abilities to use effective instructional strategies to support student learning about and for the environment. For teachers’ perceived capacities to be brought into alignment with their beliefs, they need to be supported with effective curriculum materials, as well as opportunities to develop appropriate knowledge of content and an understanding of how to engage students in inquiry to promote their learning about and for the environment.
Teachers’ Reported Practice
Finally, teachers’ reported actual use of inquiry practices to promote student learning about and for the environment were lower than both their beliefs and perceived capacities. In short, they reported engaging students in these practices far less than they believed they should and than they reported feeling capable of. Specifically, the teachers in this study reported teaching about the environment an average of 15.11 hours each year. Recent research (Morton & Dalton, 2007) suggests that k-4 teachers devote approximately 2.3 hours per week to science, or around 82.8 hours of science per year. This is approximately 7.1% of the average school week and suggests that 18% of instructional time these teachers devoted to science each year involves teaching about the environment. This number represents approximately 1.3% of elementary students’ total time in school - a miniscule percentage of total school time being devoted to students’ development of scientific and environmental literacy. More recent elementary-focused research has shown that a disproportionate amount of instructional time and resources being allocated to certain subjects, such as mathematics and literacy, while science is increasingly deprioritized (Marx & Harris, 2006; Spillane et al., 2001). The statistics provided here illustrate how this trend is influencing the amount of instructional time being devoted to students’ development of scientific and environmental literacy.
Research Question 3 - Relationships between Teacher Characteristics and Teachers’ Beliefs About, Perceived Capacities For, and Reported Use of Scientific Inquiry to Promote Student Learning About and For the Environment
Finally, in research question 3, I asked, ‘What relationships exist between elementary teachers’ professional characteristics (e.g., teacher education, professional development, and classroom experience) and their beliefs about, perceived capacities, and use of scientific inquiry to support student learning about and for the environment?’. Teachers who reported a greater number of years teaching experience and number of hours each year teaching about environmental issues in science also reported feeling more strongly that teachers should engage students in these inquiry practices, reported a greater perceived capacity to do so, and also reported doing so more often. Teachers who reported taking an environmental education methods course believed more strongly that inquiry practices should be used to teach about environmental issues than respondents who had not taken such a course. Finally, respondents who reported having more professional development experiences focused on environmental education reported a greater perceived capacity to engage students in inquiry practices to learn about environmental issues. These findings have important implications for how elementary teachers may best be supported to engage in inquiry to promote student learning about and for the environment.
Implications
Based on the findings for each of my research questions, I next provide recommendations for fostering elementary teachers’ beliefs and perceived capacities to engage in inquiry to promote student learning about and for the environment.
Fostering Beliefs and Intent
Teachers’ beliefs are an important mediating influence on their classroom practice (Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1996; Roehrig, Kruse, & Kern, 2007). To support student learning about and for the environment through scientific inquiry, teachers need to believe these are important goals. Findings from this study, as well as previous research (Kim & Fortner, 2006; Plevyak et al., 2001; Sadler et al., 2006), show that teachers want to teach about the environment. Based on this evidence, it appears that teachers’ beliefs and intent are not significant barriers to engaging in instruction about and for the environment.
Moreover, this study’s findings illustrate how teachers might be further supported to develop beliefs and intent that are consistent with engaging students in inquiry practices to support their learning about and for the environment. Our findings suggest, first, that actually engaging in classroom teaching about and for the environment is positively related to teachers’ beliefs about doing so. Second, methods courses for preservice teachers specifically focused on environmental education are positively related to teachers’ beliefs about using inquiry practices to engage students in learning about the environment. Further research should be carried out to establish causal relationships between these experiences and teachers’ beliefs about, perceived capacities, and actual use of inquiry practices to engage students in learning about and for the environment.
There are important implications of these findings. First, the more experience teachers have teaching about and for the environment in the context of science, the more they prioritize these practices. Especially for practicing teachers, the frequency with which they teach about the environment is largely determined by local standards, available curriculum materials, access to on- and off-site settings, and available instructional time (Gayford, 2002; Hughes, 2000; Kim & Fortner, 2006; May, 2000; Meichtry & Harrell, 2002; Zint & Peyton, 2001). For preservice teachers, however, gaining teaching experience is problematic as many teacher education programs do not provide such opportunities and, even when they do, they are limited. Additionally, adding required environmental education methods courses to teacher education programs further crowds an already crowded curriculum (Heimlich et al., 2004). For formal teacher education to place greater emphasis on environmental education, and for practicing teachers to support student learning about and for the environment through scientific inquiry, students’ development of scientific and environmental literacy must be reprioritized alongside goals for their subject-matter learning.
Fostering Capacity
In addition to supporting teachers to develop beliefs and intentions that support teaching about and for the environment, they must also be supported to develop the capacity to do so. Teachers’ capacities for pedagogical design (Brown, 2009) are a function of their own personal resources (knowledge, skills, etc.), the physical tools at their disposal, and features of the contexts in which they work. To develop their subject-matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, as well as learn how to mobilize knowledge resources, curricular resources, and activity settings, teachers need long-term, sustained, coherent opportunities for learning through teacher education and ongoing professional development.
To support student learning about and for the environment through inquiry, teachers must not only develop knowledge and skills, have access to effective curriculum materials, and be supported by the teaching contexts, but also learn how to use these resources effectively in light of context to accomplish particular instructional goals. As a result, this is a highly situated process, meaning these elements of any given teacher’s pedagogical design capacity will be unique. Therefore, teachers’ learning to effectively mobilize these resources in light of their unique school and classroom contexts will also be highly dependent on how contextualized opportunities for learning are.
Findings from this study reinforce this perspective on teachers’ pedagogical design capacity. First, as with teachers’ beliefs, actual experience using inquiry in the classroom to support students’ learning about and for the environment was related to teachers’ perceived capacity to do so. In short, the more time teachers spend engaging in these practices, they more confident they are in their capacity to do so. Additionally, professional development opportunities focused on teaching about and for environmental issues was positively related to teachers’ perceived capacities, or their requisite knowledge, skills, and resources, to engage students in relevant inquiry practices. Unlike many teacher education experiences, inservice professional development is often focused more specifically on particular pedagogical and content domains. As such, they are often designed to explicitly address issues and practices relevant to a subset of teachers with similar needs (Dresner, 2002; Wee et al., 2007). It is encouraging, then, that these experiences can increase teachers’ perceived capacities to support student learning about and for the environment through scientific inquiry.
Interestingly, however, these results do not indicate a relationship between the number of environmental science courses teachers reported having taken and their beliefs about engaging students in inquiry to learn about environmental issues, their perceived capacities to do so, or their reported teaching practice. While robust subject-matter knowledge is important for teachers to effectively engage in teaching about the environment (Ekborg, 2003; Fortner & Meyer, 2000; Littledyke, 1997; Sadler et al., 2006), this finding suggests that methods of supporting preservice teachers’ subject-matter learning beyond traditional science content courses be explored.
Limitations and Future Research
While this study contributes to our understanding of teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and use of scientific inquiry to promote student learning about and for the environment, it has limitations and suggest additional questions for investigation. First, the survey data upon which these findings are self-report. Such data is widely used and appropriate as a measure of teachers’ expressed knowledge, beliefs, orientations, self-efficacy, and other personal characteristics. However, it is more problematic for characterizations of the teachers’ practice, in this case environmentally-oriented teaching practice, as it does not allow for data triangulation through observation. Future research exploring teachers’ use of scientific inquiry to promote student learning about and for the environment should draw upon observations of classroom activity. Such observations should be carried out extended periods of times in an effort to further illuminate how and to what extent teachers are engaging in these teaching practices. This is especially crucial for establishing links between personal teacher characteristics and what they actually do in their classrooms.
Second, this study is limited by the 52% response rate achieved in the survey administration. This response rate is acceptable given typical response rates on mail-administered surveys (Dillman, 1991). It is also not surprising given the downward trend in survey response rates that has been discussed at length by survey researchers (Curtin, Presser, & Singer, 2005). Nonetheless, it is possible that non-respondents in this study held significantly different beliefs and characteristics than did respondents. Every attempt was made to maximize teacher response rates until funds for this study were exhausted. To maximize survey response rates, researchers need to, first, draw upon previous survey research with teachers to identify effective administration techniques and incentives. Second, survey research needs to be sufficiently funded so that appropriate funds can be allocated so as to maximize response rates. More research is needed to investigate how to best employ research resources in survey research with teachers to as to maximize coverage and minimize response error.
Findings from this study yield many more questions that merit further investigation. Overall, results from the survey suggest that teaching experience, specifically experience teaching about and for the environment, is significantly related to beliefs about and perceived capacities to promote student learning about and for the environment through scientific inquiry. However, more research is needed to better understand how to bring teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, and actual teaching practice into alignment. For example, because taking an environmental methods course was positively related to teachers’ beliefs, additional research should explore how environmental education methods can be integrated into existing science teaching methods courses. In addition, because environmental science courses were not significantly related to teachers’ beliefs, perceived capacities, or teaching practices, more research is needed to explore how preservice and inservice teachers’ subject-matter learning can be optimally-supported. Professional development was also shown to be positively related to teachers’ perceived capacities. Further research should explore how to leverage these experiences to not only increase teachers’ beliefs about and perceived capacities for inquiry-based teaching about environmental issues, but also their actual engagement in these classroom practices.
Conclusion
Current reform in both science education and environmental education call for students’ development of scientific literacy and environmental literacy (NAAEE, 2000; NRC, 1996, 2009). To become scientifically- and environmentally-literate, students need to engage in scientific inquiry to learn about environmental issues, or about science in the context of environmental issues, and for decision-making and action about environmental issues. One way for this to occur is through integrated, substantive, project-based approaches to science education that are already being argued for (Grandy & Duschl, 2007). Many contemporary science curriculum development projects have designed science curricula around this driving principle (Barab & Luehmann, 2003; Crawford, 2000; Polman, 2004; Schneider, Krajcik, Marx, & Soloway, 2001) in hopes of maximizing student motivation and engagement and making more explicit the connections between often abstract science ‘content’ and the real-world in which scientific concepts are constructed and used. Thus, there is a congruence between current trends in science education and goals of environmental education. It also suggests that environmental education can, essentially, find increasingly open avenues into the science curriculum by piggybacking onto current trends in science education reform.
Unfortunately, existing research highlights the challenges faced not only by environmental educators, but also science educators promoting inquiry-oriented, project-based approaches to science teaching and learning. As institutions, schools are highly resilient and resistant to change. Despite science education reform initiatives over the last 20 years, much classroom science teaching and learning remains traditional in nature (Duschl, 1994). Grandy and Duschl (2007) note that the crucial question is whether we try to fit research findings into the current structures and culture of schools or advocate institutional change such that reformed schools come to reflect what research says is best practice. This suggests that while further research on teachers’ beliefs, capacities, and practice can further illuminate these issues, there is also a need to advocate for a policy and institutional context in which students’ development of scientific and environmental literacy through scientific inquiry is explicitly prioritized in curriculum standards and valued as an outcome for student learning.
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Appendix a: Survey Instrument (Hard Copy)
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Appendix B: Survey Instrument (Online Version)
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APPENDIX C: Invitation Letter 1
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APPENDIX D: Invitation Letter 2
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APPENDIX E: Invitation Letter 3
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APPENDIX F: Institutional Review Board Exemption
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[1] While adjacent to the Ann Arbor School District and university community, teachers in Ypsilanti schools were not included in the sample population because faculty lists were not publicly-available and district officials were unwilling to release this information when it was requested.
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