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

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

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

The Biohead-Citizen project • Conceptions of (future) teachers The main goal is to clarify their structure and analyse them as social representations Potential impact on what is taught at school • Personal information A specific part of the questionnaire + disseminated political questions • Throughout 16 countries

Environmental Education • Teachers’ environmental attitudes “Collection of beliefs, affect and behavioural intentions a person holds regarding environmentally related activities or issues” (Schultz et al, 2004) • Cognitive structure Two-dimensional ecocentric-anthropocentric paradigm (Thompson and Barton, 1994; Bogner et al, 2000) Goal: Better prediction of behaviours

Question 1 A4 Utilization (anthropocentric) Question 2 A8 … Preservation (ecolocentric) The Biohead-Citizen questionnaire • Structure of questions = issues of interest Environmental attitudes

P1 - Portugal InB – In service biology secondary P2 - France PreP – Pre service secondary P3 - Germany … … The Biohead-Citizen questionnaire • Structure of individuals = sampling groups Country Teaching groups

1 2 3 4 Describing the data • Answers to the questions A numeric coding is used A16: Our planet has unlimited natural resources I don’t agree I agree Likert scale

Describing the data • Answers to the questions A16: Our planet has unlimited natural resources

Multivariate statistical analysis • Purposes Global dependence between questions/issues according to theoretical expectations Structure of questions • Different attitudes across sampling groups: • regarding all issues. • regarding particular issues Structure of individuals

Multivariate statistical analysis Basic principle New variables Questionnaire Capturing synthetic components

Multivariate statistical analysis • Properties of the new components • Components are linear combinations of questions • Independence : no correlation • between the components • Variance partition: ordering • by decreasing variance V1 = 0.5A1 - 0.3A2 + 0.6A3 + 0.8A4

Multivariate statistical analysis • Main methods available • Principal Component Analysis (PCA): euclidean • distance between individuals. Only with quantitative data • Correspondance Analysis (CA): chi-square • distance, well suited to categorical data.

Multivariate statistical analysis • Featuring the variation in attitudes Variance according to the components V1 V2

1 2 3 4 Environmental attitudes Structure of attitudes 15 questions– Principal Component Analysis Preservation Characterizing the attitudes Arrow for Likert scale V1 Utilization V2

Environmental attitudes • What most differentiates the attitudes in socio-cultural groups Between-group analysis • Look for combinations of questions that most • differentiate the groups • One can relate the new components to the • structure of the basic PCA analysis

U U U U U U U Structure of individuals • What most differentiates the groups 16 country groups

Structure of individuals • Is the differentiation significant ? Country groups Randomization test Actual differentiation p-value < 0.001

Structure of individuals • What most differentiates the groups Between-group analysis • This kind of analysis may be applied either to • separate issues or to the whole questionnaire. • One may investigate differentiation between • countries, religions, teaching groups… according • to specific hypotheses. • Analysis on groups inside any country.

Structure of individuals • Controlling for the effect of country Orthogonal analysis • Look for attitudes that are independent from • the teachers’ nationality • Point out if a common structure emerges • throughout the countries

Preservation Utilization Structure of individuals No difference between countries • Orthogonal analysis controlling for country

Looking for causes • Orthogonal analysis Controlling the effect of one factor • Analysing attitudes independently from the effect • of a given factor Independent test of another factor • We separate out the effect of both factors

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

Looking for causes No difference between religion groups 1 - Orthogonal analysis controlling for religion

Looking for causes Differences between countries independent from religion 2 - Independent effect of country

Analysis of the cognitive structure • Non-parametric statistical framework Investigating the effect of two factors A and B 1- Global PCA: effect of both 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

Opening up the discussion • Multivariate analysis helps clarifying the structure of environmental attitudes What are the attitudes according to which 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

Preservation Utilization Environmental attitudes Structure of attitudes 15 questions– Principal Component Analysis Grouped questions = high positive correlation Orthogonal questions = no correlation Opposite questions = high negative correlation

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