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Measuring Environmental Education Program Impacts and Learning in the Field: Using an Action Research Cycle to Develop a Tool for Use with Young Students

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

Roy Ballantyne ,
Jan Packer  and
Michele Everett
Roy Ballantyne*
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Jan Packer
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Michele Everett
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
*
†Faculty of Business, Economics & Law, University of Queensland, Ipswich Campus, 11 Salisbury Road, Ipswich, Queensland 4305, Australia. Email: r.ballantyne@uq.edu.au
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Abstract

Despite the increasing importance of, and interest in, documenting the impact of environmental education programs on students' learning for sustainability, few tools are currently available to measure young students' environmental learning across all the dimensions of knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours. This paper reports on the development of such a tool, using an iterative action research process with 134 students, aged six to eleven, attending programs at an Environmental Education Centre in Queensland, Australia. The resulting instrument, the Environmental Learning Outcomes Survey (ELOS) incorporates observations of students' engagement in learning processes as well as measuring learning outcomes, and allows both of these aspects to be linked to particular components of the environmental education program. Test data using the instrument are reported to illustrate its potential usefulness. It is envisaged that the refined instrument (appended) will enable researchers to measure student environmental learning in the field, investigate environmental education program impacts and identify aspects of programs that are most effective in facilitating student learning.

Keywords

environmental educationlearning for sustainabilityenvironmental learning outcomes survey
Type
Research Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 21 , 2005 , pp. 23 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2005

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