Cognitive structures of university students about environmental education, climate change and consumption

Table 1 shows the numbers of the response words produced for each key concept in the word association test.

Table 1. Number of response words given to environment-related key concepts

Key Concepts	The Number of Words
Environmental Education	142
Climate Change	112
Consumption	85
Total	339

The total number of response words related to key concepts in the test was found to be 142 for environmental education, 112 for climate change and 85 for consumption.

Table 2 shows the three response words that most frequently came to the minds of the respondents in association with each key concept in the word association test.

Table 2. Three response words that most frequently came to the minds of the respondents in association with the key concepts in the word association test

Key Concepts
The Response Words Produced for Key Concepts

1

2

3

Environmental Education

outdoors

sustainability

nature

Climate Change

global warming

green house gases

ice-caps melting

Consumption

*America

humans

waste

*Note: “America” was chosen since the study occurred in the United States

As can be seen in Table 2, students frequently used the words of outdoors, sustainability and nature in relation to environmental education, the words of global warming, greenhouse gases and melting ice caps in relation to climate change, and the words of America, humans and waste in relation to consumption.

The concept maps were formed separately for the respondents by their cognitive structures. The concept maps formed in reference to the cut-off points are presented below. The first cut-off point was 19 and above for the concept map formed in reference to the frequencies of the concepts that were provided by the respondents in the word association test. Next, the cut-off point was decreased by five frequencies in a repeated way to develop the other concept maps. The concept maps formed in reference to these cut-off points are presented below. The key concepts and concept map of the associated words constructed based on the results of the word association test and the comments on this map are provided in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The concept map constructed based on the key concepts

When the results in Figure 1 were examined, there was a considerable increase in the number of both the key concepts and the number of the words associated with the key concepts for the cut-point between 8 and 3. All of the key concepts that were given to the respondents appeared in this interval. Both the relationship between the key concepts themselves starts to appear and increase in the number of words associated when each concept is observed.

Table 3 presents sample sentences concerning the associations formed among the words perceived by the students’ in relation to the key concepts given to the students.

Table 3. Sample sentences concerning the associations formed among the words perceived by the students in relation to the key concepts given

Key Concept	Sentences Including Scientific Information
Environmental education	Environmental education takes place primarily in the outdoors. Sustainability is a goal or outcome of environmental eduation programs. Sustainability is an environmental education aspect concerning sense of place in ecology. Natural resources can be better understood through environmental education. The most effective environmental education takes place in nature. Environmental education is a way of preserving what we have. Environmental education is a good chance of teaching to conservation efforts. Environmental education is based on experiental learning.
Climate change	Global warming is affecting our world. The ice caps are melting and it is affecting wildlife. People see climate change as part of global warming. Climate change involves the build-up of excess greenhouse gases. Another common term of climate change is global warming. Climate change can be bad if it is a human driven v. a natural process. Al Gore made a movie about climate change.
Consumption	America is associated with over-consumption of goods. Americans are wasteful. The world is consuming all of the Earth’s natural resources. Food consumption is a difficult thing to control in America. The greatest consumption is what we eat.

Key Concepts	The Response Words Produced for Key Concepts
Key Concepts	1	2	3
Environmental Education	outdoors	sustainability	nature
Climate Change	global warming	green house gases	ice-caps melting
Consumption	*America	humans	waste