An empirical test of self-determination theory as a guide to fostering environmental motivation

A goal of most environmental education is to motivate students toward environmentally friendly behaviour change. This article describes a study that elucidates how such motivation can be fostered in the classroom. It compared students’ development of environmental motivation in a conventional post-secondary environmental biology course and a similar course guided by self-determination theory (SDT). Students in the SDT-guided course experienced less amotivation after the course than students in the comparison section. This article presents a preliminary empirical examination of the utility of SDT in a formal environmental education setting.     

How to Do Things with Mouse Clicks: Applying Austin’s speech act theory to explain learning in virtual worlds

This article addresses learning in desktop virtual worlds where students role play for professional education. When students role play in such virtual worlds, they can learn some knowledge and skills that are useful in the physical world. However, existing learning theories do not provide a plausible explanation of how performing non-verbal virtual-world actions (e.g. performing a virtual chest examination in a virtual hospital) can lead to the learning of the physical world equivalent. Some theories are particularly implausible because they claim that students learn to perform physical world actions by acting on the virtual world in an embodied way. This is implausible because learning requires a high degree of correspondence between the learning performance and the target performance, and there is insufficient physical correspondence between the performance of a virtual-world action where students click on a mouse to make the avatar take actions and the physical-world equivalent where students perform the action with their own body. In this article, we use Austin’s speech act theory to provide a more plausible theory of learning in virtual worlds. We show how non-verbal virtual-world actions performed by avatars can function as performatives and as performatives, they can correspond sufficiently to physical world actions to explain how performing non-verbal virtual-world actions can lead to physical world learning.     

Non-Athletic High-School Contests: 40,000 Orchestras 600,000 Debaters

Great teachers understand the fundamental difference between motivation and inspiration: motivation is self-focused and inspiration is other focused. Exceptional teachers guide students to greatness by inspiring them to discover where their talents and passions intersect. For today's besieged classroom teacher, the desire to motivate students often springs from a place of self-concern: "I want to change your behavior with a reward or incentive so that, if you meet the targets or goals I set for you, this will help me meet my own needs and goals." Students are highly motivated to perform when they first come to school. The question is not "how can students be motivated?" but rather, "how can educators be deterred from diminishing—even destroying—student motivation and morale through their policies and practices?"     

Our School at Blair Grocery: A Case Study in Promoting Environmental Action Through Critical Environmental Education

Despite wide agreement on the goals of environmental education (EE), the promotion of action is still considered contentious. Critical environmental education (critical EE) teaches students to combine critical reflection with the ability to engage in local action to address social/environmental problems. This article examines a critical urban farming school in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward for how student action is addressed. Results found that critical learning within an egalitarian, youth-centered community located in a disadvantaged area produces students who are more enlightened and empowered to create change. However, concerns regarding funding and safety led staff to not adhere to maintaining an egalitarian ethic, undermining the individualism and unpredictability that critical EE thrives upon and producing “disconnects” in students’ education.     

What they think, what they know, what they do: Rural secondary teachers’ motivational beliefs and strategies

This research examined how rural high school teachers’ beliefs and perceptions of themselves, their students and the challenge of motivation influence their strategic classroom and interpersonal motivating practice. Participants were 13 teachers in three rural, public high schools in two US states. Teachers’ beliefs about motivation generally, and their students’ motivation specifically, reflect a position favouring need and willingness to intervene for unmotivated students. However, their self-perceptions reflect a relatively weak efficacy to intervene successfully. Generally, teachers’ prevalent choice of strategies aligned with their perceptions of reasons that students were undermotivated. In contrast, some teachers’ narratives of actual efforts to motivate a specific student were inconsistent with their self-reported philosophies and style of motivation, and with their general statements of how they would motivate students who needed it. These findings suggest implications for design of teacher education and inservice teacher professional development.     

The interplay between students' motivational profiles and science learning

Students' motivation plays an important role in successful science learning. However, motivation is a complex construct. Theories of motivation suggests that students' motivation must be conceptualized as a motivational system with numerous components that interact in complex ways and influence metacognitive processes such as self-evaluation. This complexity is further increased because students' motivation and success in science learning influence each other as they develop over time. It is challenging to study the co-development of motivation and learning due to these complex interactions which can vary widely across individuals. Recently, person-centered approaches that capture students' motivational profiles, that is, the multiplicity of motivational factors as they co-occur in students, have been successfully used in educational psychology to better understand the complex interplay between the co-development of students' motivation and learning. We employed a person-centered approach to study how the motivational profiles, constructed from goal-orientation, self-efficacy, and engagement data of N = 401 middle school students developed over the course of a 10-week energy unit and how that development was related to students' learning. We identified four characteristic motivational profiles with varying temporal stability and found that students' learning over the course of the unit was best characterized by considering the type of students' motivational profiles and the transitions that occurred between them. We discuss implications for the design and implementation of interventions and future research into the complex interplay between motivation and learning.     

The Teacher's other Role

Given that many high school students come to school unmotivated to learn, the purpose of this article is to examine various motivational constructs and to determine if educators are incorporating the most effective motivational strategies. In fact, adolescents vary from adults physically, cognitively, emotionally, and physiologically and, therefore, they generally differ in their perceptions on the effectiveness of a variety of motivational practices. Students are more likely to attribute their own motivation to their intrinsic desire to learn or as a result of the goals they adopt. Teachers, on the other hand, believe students are more likely to be motivated as a result of the teachers’ actions. Teachers do not always recognize which motivational constructs are the most effective, demonstrating the value of pre-service and in-service programs that stress student motivation. If educators wish to maximize student academic achievement, they must understand how to motivate students successfully.     

Identifying Needs,Obstacles, and Solutions

Abstract

Residential environmental education camps provide a setting that can result in beneficial changes in participants' self-esteem, interpersonal relationships, and feelings of connection with the natural world, as well as stimulating greater interest in future low-impact recreation experiences in natural areas. When students learn how ecosystems function and about environmental action strategies that contribute to their maintenance, they develop more environmentally responsible behaviors. Wolf Creek Nature Camp is an environmental education program that integrates awareness of the natural environment, knowledge of environmental concepts and issues, and action on environmental problems. The 2-week program raises campers' self-esteem; increases their interest in, and curiosity about, nature, and fosters outdoor skills. Enhanced self-esteem is a major influence on their desire to take further environmental action.     

Relational identities and intergenerational learning in an undergraduate critical food studies course

Abstract

Environmental education (EE) scholars view intergenerational learning as a means to influence adult understandings of and relationships with the environment. Yet EE researchers have studied intergenerational learning in a limited fashion, with no emphasis on its role in higher education. The purpose of this article is to use feminist posthumanist theories to broadly explore intergenerational learning in critical food studies courses taught at the university level. We rely primarily on student coursework and post-course interviews as data sources that convey student perceptions of interactions with their families and the natural world, demonstrating how students develop relational identities shaped by personal experience as well as experiences in the course. To conclude, we discuss both the limitations and implications of this research for the field of EE.     

Toward citizenship science education: what students do to make the world a better place?

With increased focus on sustainability and socioscientific issues, dealing with issues related to citizenship is now seen as an important element of science education. However, in order to make the world a better place, mere understanding about socioscientific issues is not enough. Action must also be taken. In this study, 35 international gifted students—potential scientists—aged 15–19 were interviewed to investigate what they were doing to make the world a better place. The interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis with focus on students’ actions toward a better world, their rationalizations for such actions, and the role of science in the rationalizations. The analysis shows that students consciously take a wide range of actions, and that they see citizenship as a process of constant self-development. The three categories created to highlight the variation in the ways students take action were personally responsible actions, participatory actions, and preparing for future. Although many students saw that science and scientists play a big role in solving especially the environmental problems, most of them also discussed the structural causes for problems, as well as the interplay of social, economic, and political forces. The results indicate that citizenship science education should take the variety of students’ actions into consideration, give students the possibility to take individual and participatory action, as well as give students opportunities to get to know and discuss the ways a career in science or engineering can contribute to saving the world.     

高校学生学习英语动机与教师组织教学

学生学习英语动机直接影响学习英语的效果。教师了解学生学习英语动机、激发并保持学习者的正面学习动机与成功地组织外语教学有着密不可分的关系。     

Enhancing students’ mathematical reasoning in the classroom: teacher actions facilitating generalization and justification

A proof is a connected sequence of assertions that includes a set of accepted statements, forms of reasoning and modes of representing arguments. Assuming reasoning to be central to proving and aiming to develop knowledge about how teacher actions may promote students’ mathematical reasoning, we conduct design research where whole-class mathematical discussions triggered by exploratory tasks play a key role. We take mathematical reasoning as making justified inferences and we consider generalizing and justifying central reasoning processes. Regarding teacher actions, we consider inviting, informing/suggesting, supporting/guiding and challenging actions can be identified in whole-class discussions. This paper presents design principles for an intervention geared to tackle such reasoning processes and focuses on a whole-class discussion on a grade 7 lesson about linear equations and functions. Data analysis concerns teacher actions in relation to design principles and to the sought mathematical reasoning processes. The conclusions highlight teacher actions that lead students to generalize and justify. Generalizations may arise from a central challenging action or from several guiding actions. Regarding justifications, a main challenging action seems to be essential, while follow-up guiding actions may promote a further development of this reasoning process. Thus, this paper provides a set of design principles and a characterization of teacher actions which enhance students’ mathematical reasoning processes such as generalization and justification.     

论激发大学生英语学习动机的策略

大一新生中总有一部分人日渐失去英语学习动机 ,学好英语的决心和毅力渐趋平缓 ,乃至消退。因此 ,有必要弄清大学生失去英语学习动机的原因和对策。归纳起来有七个方面的原因 ,其中最主要的是学生的心理需要没有得到满足所致。从教师、学校、学生三个角度提出激发动机的措施 ,以期满足学生的需要 ,增强学习动机     

Supporting school teachers: primary teachers’ conceptions of their responses to diverse sexualities

Teachers experience a range of situations in the primary school context where students talk about, share ideas and use words and actions that might be described as non-heteronormative in character. This article reports on teachers’ experiences of the ways in which they respond to actions and events they see as non-heteronormative. It identifies six different ways in which teachers conceptualise their pedagogical responses to the situations they encounter: (1) being nonchalant, (2) avoiding a response, (3) being uncertain, (4) maintaining home and school boundaries, (5) protecting students’ well-being and (6) embracing non-heteronormative sexualities. Teachers’ responses to these events are important in that their actions may affect how students interpret and understand the world. Primary school teachers will benefit from support in knowing how to respond appropriately when faced with a scenario or situation that is non-heteronormative in character.     

Using a Delphi study to clarify the landscape and core outcomes in environmental education

Abstract

When leaders in a field agree upon core outcomes for the field, connection, reinforcement, and a shared vision of change are synergistically strengthened. Even when the field is dynamic, theoretically wide-ranging, and dispersed, consensus around core outcomes can help develop strategic research agendas and priorities. Environmental education (EE) is an inherently interdisciplinary field drawing on diverse theoretical foundations and epistemological orientations, resulting in a broad conceptual and empirical landscape. To better understand and situate this within EE, we pursued a modified Delphi study, with participation from 44 professionals and leaders active in North America. Over three Delphi rounds, the panel came to agreement on five core outcomes that focus the EE field: (1) environmentally related action and behavior change, (2) connecting people to nature, (3) improving environmental outcomes, (4) improving social/cultural outcomes, and (5) learning environmentally relevant skills and competencies. Reflecting those commonalities, we propose the following encapsulating statement to describe the field’s core outcomes: Environmental education works to move people to action for the tangible benefit of the environment and humanity. To realize these benefits, people must connect experientially with the environment, learn needed skills, and understand the complicated social and cultural connections between humanity and the natural environment.     

Living action research: authoring identities through yaya projects

This article examines the authors’ experiences living action research through an art therapy activity known as YaYa that involved creating and sharing visual representations of themselves as beginning researchers. This activity was part of a graduate course on education action research and students in the course found the activity transformative. The article first explores how four students in the course created and presented their YaYas. It goes on to discuss how the activity provided opportunities for students to imagine and re-imagine authored identities in the figured worlds of teaching and research. The role that visual arts play in transforming consciousness is also used to help understand the powerful impact of the YaYa activity. The YaYa as a visual artistic process opened students up to meaning-making and reconstructing identities that involved not only the mind, but also the emotions, body and spirit. The authors claim that learning action research can itself be a process of action research, and that living such practice is about involving and imagining the whole self in multiple figured worlds.     

Of Daffodils and Farmers: Literature,Agriculture Students and Ecological Awareness

In a small Midwestern liberal arts college, a class focusing on ‘Farming and Rural Life in Literature’ attracted a large number of agriculture students. Although many disliked and avoided reading, these students began to use literature as a way to understand the natural world, their role in it and the experiences they shared with other farmers half a world away. They were experiencing the transformative power of poetry that Thomas Auxter urges us to consider in his essay, ‘Poetry and Self‐Knowledge in Rural Life’. Many critics have argued that the structure of the traditional curriculum reinforces environmentally unsustainable beliefs and practices by discouraging both understanding and creative problem solving. Yet while they advocate for innovative cross‐disciplinary models, these critics pay little attention to the role of the humanities in developing the desired grasp of human interconnectedness. The students’ performance and testimony is persuasive evidence that the study of literature helps agriculture students cultivate greater appreciation of nature and their membership in a global community. Teachers of English, at all grade levels, should be aware that they can play a key role in encouraging ecological literacy in the generation of farmers who must confront the world’s environmental challenges and feed its burgeoning population.     

Environmental volunteers: factors influencing their involvement in environmental action

The aim of the present study was to investigate the factors that influence volunteers to become involved in environmental action. The research focused on volunteers undertaking action in summer camps organised by an environmental non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Greece. The results suggest that the environmental issues addressed in volunteer programmes and the standards of volunteer organisations constitute critical predictors of a volunteer’s personal commitment to participation in an organisation. Learning and contact with nature clearly emerged as the most important factors in volunteer motivation. Furthermore, although the participants considered their environmental knowledge was sufficient to stimulate their action, they also recognised the importance of continuing to deepen that knowledge. Most of the volunteers had participated previously in environmental education (EE), but only a few considered this experience to have influenced their intention to undertake action. Finally, volunteers seemed to believe in the power of citizenship and expressed a high internal locus of control. The findings of this study could enhance NGOs’ understanding of what motivates volunteers and help them improve the quality and effectiveness of their volunteer programmes. EE practitioners could also use these findings to provide people with the proper capabilities to become consciously involved in voluntary environmental action.     

Beauty in the Darkness: Aesthetic Education in the Ecological Crisis

Engaging with beauty can orient mind, heart and action in this era of ecological destruction. First, I present a vision of beauty that acknowledges some of its common critiques while salvaging it from claims that it is merely subjective, or worse, destructive. I then focus on how the ecological crisis elicits and invites participation in actions towards vulnerable things and the beauty they invoke. I reflect on my life experiences and engagements with art to help understand the possibilities and power in the beauty of vulnerable things and of actions towards them. While I acknowledge and address some difficulties with beauty as the basis for action, I suggest it is better suited to engage the ecological crisis than appealing to emotions such as hope or relying on prevalent ethical approaches. I end the paper by considering the transformative role aesthetics should play in reimagining subject focus, interdisciplinarity and character development in school curricula and pedagogy aimed at sustainability.     

Community-level environmental projects as learning tools for planners: a case study of graduate planning students

Despite the potential environmental impact of urban planning, there is little research on Environmental Education (EE) in the context of urban planning curricula. This study follows graduate planning students’ learning experience during group projects assigned as part of a planning course at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. These participatory projects, characterized as project-based learning and service learning, took place in several communities in Israel. We examined the types of learning impacts the projects engendered by analyzing the reported experiences of the students using parameters from the field of EE. The main goal of this research is to understand the contribution of such practical, hands-on project exercises to the course curriculum for inculcating environmental education themes. Findings indicate that projects helped students acquire and/or improve professional tools. They enhanced motivation to consider environmental concerns in their work and in some cases changed students’ personal environmental behavior.