Pre-service science teachers’ views of the ecological footprint: The starting-points of sustainable living

Analysis of the quantitative data

In this research, quantitative data analyses were made using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Analysis Programme. In the research, the measure of central tendency values and central distribution values of food, habitation, transportation, and goods/services points of pre-service science teachers were reported and relations between points were examined using the correlation method.

Analysis of the qualitative data

The written responses explaining what is meant by the term ecological footprint were analysed in one way. The development of categories to capture the features of an ecological footprint appearing in the responses of the sample and counting their frequency of occurrence.

Categories capturing the features of ecological footprint

Each response was read and the elements within it were added to a summary sheet to build up a list of all the elements in all the responses. Categories for coding the elements were then generated from this list. It was found that the six categories shown in Figure 1 could be used to code all of the data. These categories can be thought of as the various features present in the students’ explanations of the nature of ecological footprint. The analytical process then involved examining each response and using the categories to code the elements present. Note that once a given category had made an appearance in a response, further occurrences of the same category in the response were not coded. In other words, the responses were coded for the categories present— each category could only occur once (even though its presence may have been supported by several elements). Since one response usually contained several categories, the number coded was far greater than the sample size. This method of analysis was not used initially to make judgements about individual responses. Rather, it was employed to portray the frequencies of occurrence of the various features of sustainable development (the categories) in the sample before and after training.

The coding process

In this study, the categories used were developed by the author. The validity of the data analysis therefore relies on the credence given to the judgements made by the experienced science education teacher and the doctoral student who had considerable experience in researching science and environmental education. We provide examples of responses and their categorizations (Figure 1 shows) at various points in the paper to enable readers to appraise our decisions.

Figure 1. The 6 categories used to code elements in the responses

1. Biologically productive land and water areas required to produce all the resources an individual consumes and to absorb the waste they generate

2. Intuitional measurement of the effect of individual/society on nature

3. Indicator of sustainability

4. The total effect of humans on the world

5. Environment policy and the calculation instrument used for environmental management

6. Others