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Methodology and results to analyse conceptions on nature utilization and preservation among

teachers from 16 countries

François Munoz, Franz Bogner, Pierre Clément and Graça S. Carvalho

Environmental Psychology Conference 2007 – Bayreuth, Germany

September 9-12 2007

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The Biohead-Citizen project

Scientific issues in biology, health and environment

Environmental Education

Health Education

Human Reproduction and Sex Education

Genetic and biological determinism

Evolution

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The Biohead-Citizen project

Conceptions of (future) teachersThe main goal is to clarify their structureand analyse them as social representations

Personal informationA specific part of the questionnaire

+ disseminated political questions

Throughout 16 countries

Potential impact on what is taught at school

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Environmental Education

Teachers’ environmental attitudes

“Collection of beliefs, affect and behavioural intentionsa person holds regarding environmentally related

activities or issues” (Schultz et al, 2004)

Cognitive structure

Goal: Better prediction of behaviours

Two-dimensional ecocentric-anthropocentric paradigm(Thompson and Barton, 1994; Bogner et al, 2000)

LIRDHISTThe Biohead-Citizen questionnaire

Structure of questions = issues of interest

Environmentalattitudes

Utilization(anthropocentric)

Preservation(ecolocentric)

Question 1

Question 2

…

A4

A8

LIRDHISTThe Biohead-Citizen questionnaire

Structure of individuals = sampling groups

Country

P1 - Portugal

P2 - France

P3 - Germany

…

Teaching groups

InB – In service biology secondary

PreP – Pre service secondary

…

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Describing the data

Answers to the questions

A numeric coding is used

A16: Our planet has unlimited natural resources

4321I agree I don’t agree

Likert scalePT FI HU RO MA FR SN IT CY ES LB TN

1 33 4 7 20 213 29 132 35 36 11 443 333

2 40 1 7 25 38 12 48 22 35 0 88 129

3 55 12 41 36 17 62 36 46 69 5 41 86

4 223 289 279 192 62 629 108 456 182 167 150 205

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Describing the data

Answers to the questionsA16: Our planet has unlimited natural resources

LIRDHISTMultivariate statistical analysis

Purposes

Global dependence between questions/issues according to theoretical expectations

Different attitudes across sampling groups:

• regarding all issues.• regarding particular issues

Structure of questions

Structure of individuals

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A1 A4 A5 A7

Q1 2 1 3 4

Q2 1 1 2 3

Q3 3 2 3 2

Q4 1 2 2 4

Q5 3 1 3 1

V1 V2 V3 V4

Q1 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.1

Q2 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.1

Q3 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2

Q4 0.3 0.5 0.2 0.1

Q5 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.2

Multivariate statistical analysis

Basic principle

Questionnaire New variables

Capturing synthetic components

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Properties of the new components

• Independence : no correlationbetween the components

• Variance partition: ordering by decreasing variance

V1 V2 V3 V4

A1 0.5 1.2 -0.1 0.3

A4 -0.3 0.1 0.6 1.1

A5 0.6 -1.0 0.8 -2.2

A7 0.8 0.9 0.0 0.4

• Components are linear combinations of questions

Multivariate statistical analysis

V1 = 0.5A1 - 0.3A2 + 0.6A3 + 0.8A4

LIRDHISTMultivariate statistical analysis

Main methods available

• Correspondance Analysis (CA): chi-squaredistance, well suited to categorical data.

• Principal Component Analysis (PCA): euclideandistance between individuals.

Only with quantitative data

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V1 V2

Multivariate statistical analysis

Featuring the variation in attitudes

Variance according to the components

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15 questions– Principal Component Analysis

Arrow for Likert scale

4321

Characterizing the attitudes

Structure of attitudes

Environmental attitudes

Preservation

UtilizationV1

V2

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Environmental attitudes

What most differentiates the attitudes in socio-cultural groups

• Look for combinations of questions that mostdifferentiate the groups

• One can relate the new components to thestructure of the basic PCA analysis

Between-group analysis

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Structure of individualsWhat most differentiates the groups

16 country groups

U

U

U

U

UU U

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Structure of individualsIs the differentiation significant ?

Country groups

Randomization test

Actualdifferentiation

p-value < 0.001

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Structure of individualsWhat most differentiates the groups

• This kind of analysis may be applied either toseparate issues or to the whole questionnaire.

• One may investigate differentiation betweencountries, religions, teaching groups… accordingto specific hypotheses.

Between-group analysis

• Analysis on groups inside any country.

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Structure of individuals

Controlling for the effect of country

• Look for attitudes that are independent fromthe teachers’ nationality

Orthogonal analysis

• Point out if a common structure emerges throughout the countries

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Structure of individualsOrthogonal analysis controlling for country

No difference between countries

Preservation

Utilization

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Looking for causes

Orthogonal analysis

• Analysing attitudes independently from the effectof a given factor

Controlling the effect of one factor

• We separate out the effect of both factors

Independent test of another factor

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Looking for causes

Some factors can be counfounding• Religion and country are not independent

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1 - Orthogonal analysis controlling for religion

No difference between religion groups

Looking for causes

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2 - Independent effect of countryDifferences between countries independent from religion

Looking for causes

LIRDHISTAnalysis of the cognitive structure

Non-parametric statistical framework

1- Global PCA: effect of both A and B

Investigating the effect of two factors A and B

2- Orthogonal analysis controlling for A:independent effect of B

3- Orthogonal analysis controlling for B:independent effect of A

4- Orthogonal analysis controlling for A and B:effect of the interaction between A and B

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Opening up the discussion

Multivariate analysis helps clarifying the structure of environmental attitudes

What are the attitudes according towhich individuals are most contrasting?

Specific approaches allow testing hypotheses

What most differentiate groups of individuals? Between-group analysis

Can we distinguish the effects of related factors? Orthogonal analysis

Randomization tests

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Opening up the discussion

Multivariate analysis helps clarifying the structure of environmental attitudes

What are the attitudes according towhich individuals are most contrasting?

Specific approaches allow testing hypotheses

What most differentiate groups of individuals? Between-group analysis

Can we distinguish the effects of related factors? Orthogonal analysis

Randomization tests

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15 questions– Principal Component Analysis

Grouped questions = highpositive correlation

Orthogonal questions = nocorrelation

Opposite questions = highnegative correlation

Preservation

Utilization

Environmental attitudes

Structure of attitudes