The Complexities, Persistence, and Relationships among Middle School Students’ Climate Change Stances and Knowledge

Science Education;Middle school students"climate change knowledge and stances;Education;Social Sciences;Educational Studies

Newstadt, Michelle ReicherMcCall, Brian P. ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Science Education;    Middle school students";    climate change knowledge and stances;    Education;    Social Sciences;    Educational Studies;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/111361/reicher_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

Perhaps the most pressing set of challenges facing the field of science education today is the facilitation of fruitful understanding of climate change and helping individuals to make informed decisions associated with mitigating the impacts of climate change. There is a dearth of studies that focus on characterizing students’ climate change stances, messy middle concepts or knowledge development.Using mixed methods research approaches, this dissertation addresses research questions associated with characterizing students’ knowledge and stances and the persistence and relationships amongst students’ climate change knowledge and stances. Participants include middle school students from different geographic regions and types of schools who participated in a climate change and its impacts on ecosystems curriculum that aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Data collection instruments include a pre/post stance survey, pre/post knowledge assessments, and a post semi-structured interview protocol completed five months after students completed the curricular module.The study reveals that students’ climate change knowledge and stances are positively correlated. Interacting with the evidence-based curriculum is correlated with a positive stance shift regarding the existence of anthropogenic climate change. However, the majority of students remain not worried about the impacts of climate change, except in the case where a student felt (s)he has experienced the impacts of climate change, in which case (s)he was more likely to be worried. Interview data demonstrate that students with negative stances tended to have weak knowledge while students with positive stances exhibited a spectrum of knowledge (e.g., high, messy middle, and weak). These findings are valuable in guiding specific secondary school curriculum design.For example, climate change curricular units should strive to make the curriculum more relevant to students’ lives and prior experiences, specifically challenge messy middle knowledge with repeated exposures of correct scientific ideas, and targeting specific climate change vocabulary, such as using the term excess greenhouse gases instead of air pollution.Moreover, teacher training should address common climate change misconceptions and common stances, and policy makers should be lobbied to build on the current NGSS by placing climate change topics at the forefront of secondary education and assessments.