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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 20, Issue 2, Article 3 (Jun., 2021 |
Gender and educational year effects
Responding to the first research question, we found that gender and educational year significantly influenced several variables. Males were found to enjoy more spending time in nature and to have more positive attitudes towards conservation policy. However, from the interview, we did not find that males enjoy spending time in nature more; instead, we found that both males and females said that they enjoy spending time in nature. Not selectively drawing the interviewees might have been causing this qualitative result, or discrepancy might be caused by the sample size issue, which we also acknowledge as a limitation of the current research.
Regarding the findings from the effect of the educational year, the current study found several variables interacted with educational year; however, the patterns were not clear. From the quantitative results, the third year students showed lower than the second and fourth year students in the variables that were found to be significantly influenced by educational year. When we tried to uncover more through interviews, we also did not find any difference between the representative students. Thus, we believe the more qualitative study is needed to better explain these unclear patterns and the discrepancy between quantitative results and interview in the gender issue.
Model of environmental related psychological traits of the Indonesian preservice biology teacher
The current study has successfully generated an acceptable statistical model of the environment-related psychological traits from the Indonesian preservice biology teacher sample. The model indicates two significant paths to the environmental behaviour; one directly departs from their environmental beliefs, while the other one is from their environmental intention. Both paths were derived from two well-known theories of behavioural change, namely the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and value-belief-norm (Stern, 2001), meaning that the current study has supported these theories. Regarding TPB, several studies (e.g., Sniehotta et al., 2014) have found that intention is fairly suggested to have a direct impact on behaviour, which later suggests the TPB is no longer an appropriate theory to use to explain particular behaviour. However, in part, the current study found that the hypothesis generated from the TPB was significant. Thus, the finding of the current study adds more evidence for the TPB to still exist and to be used in explaining particular behaviour.
The acceptable model indicates the environmental beliefs as the crucial factor in influencing the environmental behaviour from the Indonesian preservice biology teachers’ sample. The finding suggests that increasing the degree of environmental beliefs may be one of the most effective ways to tackle the other-than-friendly behaviour towards the environment that Indonesians have so far demonstrated. Because biology teachers in most Indonesian schools teach the environmental education subject, they can directly interact with the students and contribute to influencing students’ underlying psychological traits related to the environment. Thus, establishing a learning environment in biology teacher preparation programs in Indonesia that focus on increasing their environmental beliefs can be considered an influential effort for higher education policymakers and teachers.
There are many efforts suggested by several studies that can be used to increase the individual’s environmental beliefs. One effort that considers the impactful effort to environmental beliefs is field trip or fieldwork (e.g., Alon & Tal, 2017; Ballantyne & Packer, 2002; Dillon, 2012). Dillon (2012) argued that in fieldwork, people can be encouraged to see the real phenomena of nature and the environment, as well as the problems within it. White (2004) added that experiencing nature directly enables the development of sensory experience that contributes to the increase of environmental beliefs and awareness. Moreover, Manzanal, Barreiro, and Jiménez (1999) argued that fieldwork activity not only stimulates positive feelings, beliefs, and awareness towards the environment but can also help people think in more complex frameworks of the environment, such as emphasizing the more interdependent issues of the environment. However, Manzanal et al. (1999), together with Alon and Tal (2017), suggested that several cautions need to be considered by the teachers, to better implement fieldwork activity. The authors argued that the wrong direction of fieldwork activity may result in the opposite effects of what should be obtained. The wrong implementation of fieldwork can also increase the individual’s dominance perception over nature, which means the decrease of environmental beliefs. Such wrong direction of fieldwork activity that is closely related to the biology major is sampling activity. When biology students go outside to do fieldwork activity, the activity of sampling plant and even animals is an inevitable activity for them. Because sampling from the real world can be considered like their object of study, this can increase their understanding of biological matters. Therefore, clear instruction emphasizing this kind of issue needs to be considered, before conducting fieldwork activity.
When preservice biology teachers experience many fieldwork activities and offer more education about fieldwork activity, they would get used to it, and consider it as a primary or important teaching method. It is our contention based on what we have explained above regarding fieldwork activity. Therefore, when they have this kind of perception, they would use fieldwork activity often when they start teaching in school. They are expected to do more fieldwork activity with their students while studying the environment and biology. The impact of fieldwork activity explained above may also apply to their students. The students may have more feeling of connectedness towards the environment, and see more environmental problems in real life that can increase their environmental beliefs. If students also have similar paths to those of preservice biology teachers, increase in environmental beliefs can also positively influence student’s environmental attitudes, intentions, then environmental behaviour, respectively, or the other path that directly influences environmental behaviour. More evidence from the study exploring Indonesian primary and secondary students needs to be gathered. Lastly, based on Alon and Tal (2017), adding environmental action in fieldwork activity is considered as having multiple impacts not only on environmental beliefs but also on attitudes and behaviour that will be exerted, as an increase in environmental behaviour. Thus, we urge higher education not only in Indonesia to maximize the use of fieldwork activity in biology teacher preparation programs or even other programs.
