Original scientific paper
ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE MEASUREMENT: CONCEPTUAL AND OPERATIONALIZATION APPROACHES AND PROBLEMS OF PAST RESEARCH
Krešimir Kufrin
; Filozofski fakultet Zagreb, Odsjek za sociologiju
Abstract
The paper reviews the most interesting research on environmental knowledge conducted in various fields (media, education, public opinion research, social science research), and analyses instruments (quizzes, tests, objective scales, self-assessment scales) used to measure the construct.
Environmental knowledge is the least developed field of environmental research. The number of published research and papers on the subject is far below the number of those focused on attitudes and behaviour, and the quality of developed instruments is also lower compared to those in other fields of environmental research. The main weakness of the previous research is superficial conceptualisation and lack of clear definition of the measured subject. Environmental knowledge is mostly reduced to knowledge of main ecology concepts and actual environmental problems, while other aspects of the problem area are being neglected.
Unsatisfactory operationalization is also a frequent characteristic of applied instruments, and some potentially interesting instruments are made completely useless due to elementary mistakes in item formulation.
So far, not a single research of environmental knowledge of any population has been conducted in Croatia. The fact is explained by the lack of social actors interested in serious environmental education and able to realize such an interest.
Keywords
environmental knowledge; instruments for measurement of environmental knowledge; scale evaluation; measurement scales; social-environmental knowledge
Hrčak ID:
48156
URI
Publication date:
16.6.2003.
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