Evaluating environmental education : toward a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of environmental education to change behaviour

Abstract

Support has grown for environmental education as a response to international concerns about environmental degradation. Today there are many different types and forms of environmental education taking place within a wide range of sectors, such as educational institutions, government departments, local authorities and non-governmental organisations. Many of these organisations have invested a lot of time and money in developing environmental education programmes and activities. Increasingly, they want to know whether or not these efforts are effective.

Using an IEM approach, this report investigated the fields of environmental education and behaviour change to develop an evaluative framework. It is intended that this framework be useful to organisations, such as local and regional authorities, community groups and non-governmental organisations, who offer environmental education outside of the formal educational setting. This sector was targeted because environmental education needs to reach everyone, not just those in the formal education sector.

The proposed framework uses criteria derived from environmental education and the behavioural sciences to evaluate whether a particular environmental education activity or programme may result in a change in behaviour. This framework is based on two sets of variables; the primary factors and the secondary factors. The primary factors, consist of being participatory, having community relevance and being obtainable. These factors are all considered very important in achieving a behavioural change through environmental education. The secondary factors, consist of having personal consequences, requiring change today and promoting - critical thinking. These factors are considered important, but are only likely to achieve a behaviour change, if they are combined with some of the primary factors. Overall, it appears that the framework will be capable of providing an evaluation of environmental education initiatives' potential to affect a change in people's behaviour.

This evaluative framework has been designed to provide an easily implemented means to cheaply assess the potential effectiveness of their environmental education programmes. In this way, it is the aim, of this framework to help improve the issue of a lack of evaluation in environmental education. While not providing an extensive, in depth evaluation of each environmental education initiative, this framework does provide a useful first step.