Evaluation of Ecological Dynamics Model within Ecopedagogy Based Outdoor Environmental Education Blind Review

Evaluation of Ecological Dynamics Model within Ecopedagogy-Based Outdoor Envorinmental Education Abstract Environmental awareness is evaluated related to cognitive and affective areas so environmental awareness an important point in order to predict behavioral changing One of the behavioral changing models is ecological dynamics model The objective of this study is to analyse the efficiency of an ecopedagogy based outdoor experiential education on environmental awareness and to evaluate ecological dynamics model within ecopedagogy based outdoor environmental education Environmental awareness scale and surveys are used The study finds that at the end of the education, the participants developed environmental awareness and tend to get holistic perspective We come up with holistic perspective may be added to ecological dynamics model and this model can be check out by mathematical models such as structural equation modeling Key words: Ecopedagogy, ecological dynamics model, environmental awareness, holistic perspective, outdoor education Introduction Basic aims of environmental education for sustainable development according to Agenda 21 are to achieve environmental awareness, value and attitudes, behavioral changing and taking part of decision making process (UN, 1992, p 320) Agenda 21 emphasizes the importance of in-service teacher training programs in terms of increasing environmental awareness (p 321), curricula with multidisciplinary approach (p.321) and based on activities (p 323), innovative teaching methods (p.322) 36.24 (p.328) coded title mentions to ‘exchange of experience concerning training and awareness program’ and this title is the trigger point and main scope of this research It is not easy to achieve environmental behavioral changing so researches focus on some steps such as environmental knowledge, environmental awareness or environmental attitude Even some researches come up with models (US linear model; sociological models; altruism, empathy, prosocial behavior models, model of pro-environmental behavior, ecological dynamics model etc) to achieve behavioral changing (Brymer & Davis, 2012; Burges, Harrison & Filius, 1998; Eisenberg & Miller, 1987; Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002) Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002, p 257) particularly place ‘environmental awareness’ in the model of pro-environmental behavior The distinctive points of this model is to evaluate environmental awareness either with knowledge- based component (cognitive) or perception based component (affective) so we interpret environmental awareness an important point to predict behavioral changing It affects both learning areas and may be evaluated such as a bridge from cognitive and affective learning area to physco-motor area but this way is not linear because of human factor; opposite of this, it is a little bit complicated Brymer and Davids (2012) offers to use ecological dynamics model in order to overcome this complicated way Ecological dynamics model based on experiential learning and has trivet: individual learning, environment (social and physical), and task According to this model there is not any ‘one size fits all’ environmental educational program because every person’s background is different each other so outputs of persons will be varied People even can reflect same output in different timescale Acquisition of people can be achieved by direct social (social environment) and natural environment (physical) interactions People have to be in social dialog and apply directly activities in nature These activities have to be related to daily life and people have to be part of the activities (Brymer & Davids, 2012) We could not find any research related to experimental application of ecological dynamics model Brymer and Davids (2012)’s article only explains theoretical framework of this model However the properties of ecological dynamics model overlap with ecopedagogy based outdoor environmental education and the title’s of Agenda 21 (Table 1) Ecopedagogy based outdoor environmental education program with community of practice is the other subject of this research Ecopedagogy is a critical approach towards political, ideological and economic events within education (Antunes & Gadotti, 2009; Kahn, 2010) The fundamentals of the ecopedagogy include protection of the natural environment (natural ecology), the impact of the human societies upon environment (social ecology) as well as the influence over civilization and economic, social and cultural composition (integrated ecology) The social interaction side of ecopedagogy based program is community of practice Etienne Wenger has also put special emphasis upon education within a society Etienne Wenger’s (2004) conceptualization of ‘community of practice’ is defined as a learning of cooperation with a constructive approach (Johnson, 2001) and is considered for use in the restructure of the knowledge by an application in a social environment (Baran, 2006) In fact, community of practice is not a new perspective or approach Even though it was first introduced in the field of industry, this perspective is said to be traceable back to many centuries ago (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002) Community of practice is first determined as (a) a field of subject that will gather the group or community Around the field of subject, (b) a group of people sharing the same goals and ambitions are gathered together The knowledge and talents to be transmitted (c) are learned via cooperation based on implementation and practice (Wenger, 2004) The features of the community of practice and the goals and content of the ecopedagogy-based outdoor environmental education overlap in many respects In the ecopedagogy-based outdoor environmental education, a group of select participants are gathered together to make sure that they learn the language of the nature and subsequently develop an integrated approach (Ozaner, 2004) Three major titles stand out here: (a) a group of select participants, (b) Ecopedagogy-based outdoor environmental education, (c) learning by practice The ecopedagogy-based outdoor environmental education as defined in this study refers to the field under review, the group of participants consists in-service teachers The goal is implementation of a program focusing on an event of different disciplines in an attempt to increase environmental awareness The aim of this research is to analyze the effectiveness of an outdoor environmental education program that the eco-pedagogical community of practice serves as the basis on environmental awareness Method The data for the study is retrieved from the project 'Ecology in Dardanelles and its nearby towns, 2010.' The education program (Appendix 1.) was designed as an academic event in line with the eco-pedagogic approach as well as the objective of the science-society projects (TUBITAK [The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey] Call for Paper, 2010: 1-2) The goal of the academic program is to ensure that the participant becomes part of the knowledge, perceive the nature as a whole and think like a man of science (McNeil, 1996) Within the academic program, knowledge and information is disseminated from simple to the complicated version and in connection with other disciplines (McNeil, 1996) Bruner also expresses support for an academic outlook in the programs (in Demirel, 2005) Methodologically, triangulation mixed methods are employed in the study, relying on both qualitative and quantitative data simultaneosly Quantitative data collection tools and methods The project attracts 23 participants during a ten-day period The demographic features of the participants are given in Appendix Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are applied in the study Environmental awareness scale and survey are employed Environmental awareness scale The explanatory factor analysis applied to the environmental awareness scale finds the entry factor load as 0.30 or above, the KMO as 0.867, the Bartlett Dimensionality test 0.000, Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient 0.826 whereas the confirmatory factor analysis reveals adaptability tables as X2 /sd: 2.84, RMSEA: 0.073, SRMR: 0.056, CFI:0.90, IFI:0.90, GFI:0.91, AGFI:0.87 These results confirm that the validity and reliability of the environmental awareness scale is ‘good’ (Buyukozturk, 2007; Sencan, 2005) and that it is theoretically strong and solid (Simsek, 2007) The awareness scale has one dimensional, human ecology (App 3) Data analysis Whether the data retrieved out of the participants feature a normal distribution is tested by Kolmogorov-Smirnov test This test is preferred to confirm that the data not show a normal distribution even if the number of samples in the research is less than 30 A p significant value greater than 05 under the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test means that the results not display a normal distribution (Buyukozturk, 2007) Because the p value is less than 0.05 for the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test in this research, it is concluded that the results not reveal a normal distribution Therefore, given that the results not reveal a normal distribution, non-parametric tests are used in other analyses The analysis of the tests that are run before and after the training is evaluated by the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, a method usable in cases where repeated measures are done to the same group and the results not display normal distribution The effect size is calculated in order to evaluate effect of independent variable on dependent variable (Buyukozturk, 2007; Huck, 2004; Peers, 1996) Qualitative data collection method It is noted that sampling technique is a useful method to collect data on events and individuals (Yildirim & Simsek, 2006) and to draw definitive and explanatory conclusions (Morgan, Hamilton, Bentley, & Myrie, 2009) Likewise, it is also underlined that sample analysis is a reliable method in the literature to get a deeper understanding of the events (Mitchell, 2008; Robinson, 2008; Schmitt, 2005; Yildirim & Simsek, 2006) Yildirim and Simsek (2006) stress that qualitative research is an effective tool in order to better understand humanbehavior Sample analysis is used in the study as a qualitative research method To this end, in order to collect qualitative data, the participants are asked to keep a journal A diary is given to each participant for that purpose The participants are asked to write down on a daily basis what they learn during the day, how they are planning to use these skills in their lives and how they feel about that day This particularly seeks to ensure that the participants make an independent and impartial comment on the program (Morgan et al., 2009) Morgan et al (2009) note that the individuals may express themselves more accurately when they this independently and freely, suggesting that this is actually allowing the surveyers to gather proper collection of data and information In addition, a project meeting is held with the participants at the end of the program At the meeting, they are asked to share their experiences on the most influential and amazing part of the project and how they think to share this in their social and daily life in the future The meeting is tape-recorded; after the meeting, the transcript of the record is made available for effective use It is noted that for greater reliability of the qualitative data, additional techniques should be employed as well (Yildirim & Simsek, 2006) Different methods are offered to achieve realiability (Morgan et al., 2009; Yildirim & Simsek, 2006) One of these methods is observation (Zanovello, 1999) Bas and Akturan (2008) recall that the researcher may not be able to spend his or her whole time with the participants or that the participants may act differently when they are with the researchers For this reason, the project supervisor and assistants working in the project have observed the participants during the training and taken notes At the end of the project, the journals, the transcripts of the meeting as well as the observation notes have been analyzed by reliance on content analysis methods Participant selection Participants in the project were in-service teachers, who were recruited through an advertisement sent to primary and secondary schools’ electronic post accounts Participant teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire which asked them why they wished to be involved in the project.) Some researchers stated the importance volunteering would have in terms of positive outcomes whilst participating in outdoor education (Broady, 2005; BurrusBammel& Bammel, 1990) Those enrolled to the initial program had to reply to all the questions posted at the university website The actual project participants were selected by the director following analysis of their replies to the aforementioned online questionnaire The selected project participants consisted of 23 people Completion of the project took 10 days Findings Findings on the analysis of the pre and port test total points out of the entire scale are provided in Table The analysis of the Wilcoxon signed-rank test reveals that there is a statistically significant difference between the pre and post test results (z = -2.665, p