Running head: PRE-PROPOSAL 1

Pre-Proposal: A Qualitative Research on Students’ Perception of Ecological Awareness

John Peterson

Keiser University

Dr. Andrea Thompson

EDR810 Qualitative Research

December 17, 2011

PRE-PROPOSAL 2

Pre-Proposal: A Qualitative Research on Students’ Perception of Ecological Awareness

I. Purpose of Study / Research Questions

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to gain an understanding of students’

perception of ecological awareness based on their lived experience in an ecological awareness

program. Global warming and climate change are influencing our planet in an unparalleled

manner, producing a need for better consciousness and answers to the environmental crisis

(DeGalan & Middlekauff, 2008). Students attending college are the future leaders with the

power to decide on the preservation of our planet, so it is fundamental that educational

institutions ensure that students are environmentally aware. A qualitative study on this issue is

relevant to this understanding, and this paper presents a study to describe the lived experience of

being a student exposed to ecological awareness. This study addresses the following research

questions:

1. What is it like being a student in an ecological awareness class?

2. What does it mean to be ecologically aware?

II. Literature Review

Without doubt, the world is facing an environmental crisis. The primary causes are

human-created environmental devastation, as Perlingieri (2009) explained, "massive destruction

of habitats, unsustainable uses of fuels, logging, mining, and overfishing, to name some of the

major ones. These are all done with gargantuan technologies that leave behind unmitigated

devastation" (Perlingieri, 2009, para. 1).

When combined with toxic pollution left by Bhopal, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Three-

Mile Island, Chernobyl, and other nuclear-related occurrences, which will not go away, there is a

real danger to all the inhabitants of this planet (Perlingieri, 2009).

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Although there is not much research on the subject of students' perception on

environmental awareness, some studies made a distinction by their relevance to the issues of

scholarship. Keller's (2007) field research paper on an investigation of the environmental

awareness of students in the US and Europe, based on 14 qualitative guided interviews, is one of

those. In this study Keller seeks to know "how the concrete actions of students correlate with

what they said about their values before" (p. 4) being exposed to an awareness on the

environmental crisis.

In the field research paper Keller described American student’s acceptance of having a

life experience in nature, and not giving value to environmental pollution, an acceptance stronger

in boys than girls, mostly because boys liked camping (Keller, 2007). In addition, Keller

described European students also “connected to a value of environmental protection” (p. 11) and

enjoying nature through walks and hiking.

This contact with nature is turning into a popular trend in education, especially in schools

with disciplines catering to environmental awareness. For example, Nic Mink, visiting assistant

professor of environmental studies at Knox College led a 10-day trip with nine Knox College

students to canoe and camp “through more than 100 miles of the Florida Everglades during

winter break, gaining first-hand knowledge of the deep connection between people and national

parks” (Knox College, 2011).

Storksdieck (2006) conducted a study in the role of out-of-school settings in education

for sustainability, where the author described field trips in environmental education as, "an

effective teaching tool in a variety of cognitive and affective learning dimensions" (p. 1) related

to environmental learning. Storksdieck defended the idea that out-of-school environmental

learning experiences strengthen the relationship between humans and their natural environment.

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In the author's point of view there is "a lack of global environmental science knowledge" (p. 4),

which drives the need for models that influence pro-environmental behavior (Storksdieck, 2006).

O'Brien's (2007) thesis on "Indications of environmental literacy: Using a new survey

instrument to measure awareness, knowledge, and attitudes of university-aged students"

suggested that students, especially those in higher education, have a low-to-moderate level of

environmental knowledge.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The theoretical framework of this study consists of how important it is for students to be

aware of the current and potentially dangerous future ecological crisis and how they react to this

ecological awareness. This proposed phenomenological study aims to understand students’

perception of ecological awareness based on the principles guided by Whitehead's

Theory of Experience, which defends that “the feeling of actual things by actual things to be

absolutely basic to more high-grade and specialized experience” (Muirhead Library of

Philosophy, 2002, p. 268).

III. Research Design

According to Hancock (2002), "phenomenology literally means the study of phenomena"

(p.4). This study uses phenomenal methodology to understand the phenomena related to the

integration of student awareness of the environmental crisis, in order to answer the research

questions. Phenomenology is as much a philosophy as it is a type of qualitative research that

emphasizes “experience itself and how experiencing something is transformed into

consciousness” (Merriam, 2009, p. 24).

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Methodology

The research question and the resources available for research will assist researchers in

selecting how to collect data (Devers & Frankel, 2000). Data is the information collected by the

researcher originating in the findings of the study; qualitative data is nominal, differing from

quantitative data, which is in most cases scalable. Qualitative researchers, over time, developed

a variety of ways to study human behavior (Gall, Borg, & Gall, 1996). These different

possibilities are coming from the disciplinary fields of anthropology, psychology, social

psychology, sociology, and education (Creswell, 1994). A researcher’s role in qualitative

research links to the nature of the study, which is interpretative research, and as such, there is the

risk for his or her judgmental bias and values influencing the study (Creswell, 1994).

Data collection will be through interviews. Seidman's (2006) recommended interviewing

in order to collect qualitative research data. However, interviews take time and resources;

interviewers have to be experienced in many different aspects of measurement instrumentation

(McNamara, 1999).

Devers and Frankel (2000) explained that in qualitative research the type of

instrumentation used when collecting qualitative data has pros and cons. "In most qualitative

research, the degree to which interviews and observations are structured varies. For example,

when conducting interviews, the researcher could use a very detailed interview protocol" (Devers

& Frankel, 2000, p. 267).

The way people can openly discuss their thoughts characterizes interviews. McNamara

(1999) explained that “interviews are particularly useful for getting the story behind a

participant’s experiences. The interviewer can pursue in-depth information around the topic.” In

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addition, following up answers of responses on questionnaires and further investigating

responses gives even a larger importance to interviews (McNamara, 1999).

This study will adopt an in-depth, phenomenological based interview. According to

Seidman (2006) this method associates life-history interviewing with focused, in-depth

interviewing “informed by assumptions drawn from phenomenology” (p. 15).

The interviews will be structured to follow a three-interview series, as proposed by

Seidman.

1. The first interview will focus on a participant’s experience with sustainability and

environmental issues as a result of their lived experience in an ecological awareness

program. This will be done by asking questions related with their life experiences with

the issues.

2. The second interview will concentrate on the details of the lived experiences described in

the first interview.

3. The third and final interview will be based on the reflection on the meaning of their lived

experience. This reflection is the fruit of a connection between their daily lives and their

intellectual and emotional experiences in an ecological awareness program.

Data Analysis

Data analysis is the process of systematically applying statistical and/or logical

techniques to describe and demonstrate, compress and summarize, and evaluate data. According

to the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center (n.d.) at Northern Illinois

University, "While data analysis in qualitative research can include statistical procedures, many

times analysis becomes an ongoing iterative process where data is continuously collected and

analyzed almost simultaneously" (para. 2).

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Hancock (2002) wrote, "Analysis of data in a research project involves summarizing the

mass of data collected and presenting the results in a way that communicates the most important

features” (p. 16). In qualitative research, there is an interest in discovering the whole picture by

using data to explain a phenomenon and to express and understand what it means (Hancock,

2002).

Cheng (n.d.) explained, "Data management and analysis in qualitative research are ways to

store data, to categorize data, and "to make sense of the categories and to communicate the findings

to readers". Storing data techniques is sometimes critical to data management in qualitative

research. The actual data storing in qualitative research is initiated with the collection of data

(Cheng, n.d). According to Cheng (n.d.), to hold data the following containers of data can be used:

The human brain

Field notes

Tape recorders

Video recorders

In qualitative research, whatever comes in frequently in a random way has to be understood

by the researcher (Cheng, n.d.). Fritz (2008) elucidated that the following are effortless steps to

good data management: (a) “Choose and follow a clear file naming system”; (b) “develop a data

tracking system”; (c) “establish and document transcription/translation procedures”; (d)

“establish quality control procedures”; and (d) “establish a realistic timeline” (slide 4) .

Data analysis tends to be a continuing and interactive process in qualitative research.

Folkestad (2008) explained interview data analysis as a three-step process:

1. Data reduction, this starts at the very beginning of the research phase, when concepts

and methods are developed and subjects/ phenomena selected.

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2. Data display, this step seeks meaning on a limited part of the data (summaries,

diagrams and text-matrices).

3. Conclusion, when the researcher compares, contrasts, and searches for patterns,

triangulation etc.

The researcher can check whether none, all, or some proportion of behaviors or events

occur under distinct circumstances. "The researcher can generate a preliminary model to explain

the data collected. Explanations place particular social facts in reference to their environment.

Further observations are then collected which can strengthen or weaken the researcher's

preliminary model" (Saint-Germain, 2002).

Throughout the entire process of qualitative data analysis, there will be an engagement in

memoing (i.e., recording reflective notes about what is learned from the data). In addition, there

will be a typed transcription of the data collected (from interviews, observational notes, memos,

etc.) into word-processing documents.

This study will analyze data with the assistance of the computer-assisted analyses of

qualitative data (known by the acronym CAQDAS). Although not perfect the following

advantages of CAQDAS justify this choice (Silverman, 2000):

Speed when handling large amounts of data

Better accuracy, as for example, searching deviant cases

Assist in team research, especially when conducting coding schemes

Support sampling decisions

Themes and Categories

Categorizing a study during its analysis is an efficient method of organizing information.

Although different from quantitative research coding categories function with the same purpose,

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to help indexing the data. By reading the text in study researchers can identify themes that

elaborate ideas, behaviors, concepts, interactions, terminologies, incidents, and phrase used.

Categorizing a study also has the advantage of helping to organize these categories in a coherent

way bringing meaning and sense to the text. (Taylor-Powell & Renner, 2003).

Validity and Reliability

Reliability is linked to the quality of measurement (Trochi & Donnely, 2006), and

"Construct validity refers to the degree to which inferences can legitimately be made from the

operationalization in your study to the theoretical constructs on which those operationalization

were based" as elucidated by Trochi (2006, para. 1). Merriam (2009) explained that the best way

to achieve validity and reliability in qualitative research is through ethics.

Validity and reliability are connected to the manner which research is measured, and has

to rely in ethical integrity. It is very difficult for a qualitative researcher to maintain assumptions

about investigation free of bias. An ethical code would greatly assist on that.

Merriam listed "ten items to be considered when engaging in qualitative research"

(Merriam, 2009, pp. 233-234):

1. "Explaining purpose of the inquiry and methods to be used"

2. "Promises and reciprocity"

3. "Risk assessment"

4. "Confidentiality"

5. "Informed consent"

6. "Data access and ownership"

7. "Interviewer mental health"

8. "Advice (who will be your counselor on ethical matters)"

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9. "Data collection boundaries"

10. "Ethical versus legal conduct".

Validity and reliability are major areas of concern in any research, especially in

qualitative studies (Creswell, 2007). Perhaps all researchers have the honest intent of producing

the best study they are capable of, having ethical believes and trust in results of investigations;

however, it is crucial that some form of ethical guidelines are followed, after all it is the

researcher's reputation on the line. This study will apply the following strategies to promote

validity and reliability, as suggested by Merriam (2009):

1. The use of variation and diversity in sample collection to permit a larger spectrum of

“applications of the findings by consumers of the research” (p. 229).

2. A well detailed description in order to provide readers an opportunity to examine if

their “situation match the research context” (p. 229).

3. And a critical self-reflection by the researcher regarding assumptions, bias, theoretical

involvement, and how close the researcher is to the study jeopardizing the research.

IV. Dissemination and Recommendations

All features of the findings on the qualitative data will be taken in consideration when

planning the presentation. Emerged themes and categories will be used to structure the results

section of the research report, because the data are "subjective, interpretative, descriptive,

holistic and copious and it can be difficult to know where or how to start" (Hancock, 2002, p.

22).

Following Hancock's (2002) advice, the structure will be defined at the beginning, “either

as a list or in diagrammatic form.” Then, the themes will be presented in sections with the

categories as sub-sections. Presenting in this way allows the categories of data to be used to

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build the themes as the main findings of the study. In addition, as suggested by Hancock (2002),

additional verification to support the findings “will be provided by using direct quotations from

respondents.” Key quotations will be selected to illustrate the meaning of the data.

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