It has been well demonstrated that educating students on the fundamentals of ecology and environmental biology tends to reduce anthropocentrism in their perspectives on environmental issues. However, most common tools designed for assessing ‘environmental values’ are generally too simple to apply in the setting of an undergraduate course in ecology or environmental science. We developed a novel survey instrument that polls student perspectives on environmental issues or conflicts. Issues are summarized briefly and students are asked then asked to state their level of agreement with a series of statements reflecting various perspectives on the issues. Statements are constructed so that they can reveal varying degrees of anthropocentrism and ecological awareness. This format also allows direct assessment of some subtler, constituent dimensions of environmental values, such as the degree to which economic value of resources (through direct exploitation, e.g. harvest) is considered important in resolving stakeholder conflicts. We developed this survey following the example of the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP), a benchmark assessment tool in environmental study. We applied both to survey students pre- and post-completion of a course in ecology or environmental biology.
Results/Conclusions
Results of the novel survey were compared with those from the NEP for first-order validation. Analyses indicate that our survey was effective in identifying coarse changes in environmental attitudes (degree of anthropocentrism) as well as changes in specific aspects of student perspectives (e.g. importance of economic value). The survey requires some further fine-tuning and validation, but it presently offers utility not only as an instrument for assessment but alternatively as an activity to generate class discussions.
