Remote School Students’ Perspectives on Endemic and Endangered Animals: Knowledge, Reasons, and Solutions Approach (original) (raw)
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Questionnaires are important tools for assessing attitudes regarding conservation issues. However, they are not easily comparable and their reliability has been insufficiently assessed. We examined factors influencing responses to open- and closed-ended questions about animal conservation to more than 600 schoolchildren (9 years old on average). We analysed the level of understanding, controllable (e.g. sample size) and less controllable factors (e.g. affectivity). Most children responded appropriately to the questions, but subtle changes in the phrasing influenced the answers. Affectivity towards endearing species and spontaneity also influenced the responses whereas small sample sizes (∼50 children) provided relatively stable patterns. Overall, we suggest that standardization of questionnaires administered over large spatial and time scales is needed to accurately assess children's attitudes towards conservation issues.
Assessing factors influencing students’ perceptions towards animal species conservation
PeerJ
Background The way humans perceive and interact with non-human animals is particular to each person, from antipathetic interactions evidenced by fear, aversion or repulsion, to empathy evidenced by feelings of affection, enchantment and interest in the animal. In this sense, herein we investigated the perception of university students about species belonging to different classes of wild vertebrates and the influence of social and educational factors on that. Methods Data were obtained through online forms answered by 700 university students from nine Brazilian states, 328 females and 372 males, aged between 18 and 65 years. The form had eight sentences to be answered in relation to 17 species of wild vertebrates. The agreement level for each of these sentences was to be indicated using a five-point Likert scale. The sentences were designed to assess aesthetic, risk, utilitarian, and preservation perceptions attributed to each species by students. Results We found that species percei...
Primary school students’ awareness of and attitudes toward local threatened animals
Human Dimensions of Wildlife, 2023
Human actions threaten animal species with extinction at an accelerating rate. Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) is a key factor in tackling biodiversity loss by preparing future citizens to undertake conservation actions. This study deals with the awareness and the attitudes of 401 primary school students toward wild animals, focusing on local threatened species. Although students appear to have a satisfactory level of awareness of wild animals, they are significantly less aware of local species and confused regarding threatened ones. Bird species gain the lowest recognition. Habitat transformation and climate change are not well-known threats. Students have primarily naturalistic, and ecologistic attitudes. They like animals mainly due to their perceived appearance, intelligence and being in danger of extinction, while they dislike them based on the threat they pose to humans and other animals. The findings can inspire ESE practitioners to develop effective educational programs for wild animal conservation.
Students' awareness of endangered species and threatened environments: A comparative case-study
International Journal of Hands- …, 2008
The purpose of this comparative-case study is to investigate children's awareness of endangered species and threatened environments in four countries. 5th -7th grade students in four schools, each from Turkey (n=16), Bulgaria (n=40), Romania (n=22), and USA (n=11) constituted the sample of the study. Each group of students under the guidance of their teacher was asked to select one endangered specie and threatened environment (e.g. lake) in their neighbourhood. During the study, the students went on field trips which complemented indoor discussions during club time. Student achievement was measured with five different data collection instruments each of which pertains to knowledge, skills, attitude, and behaviour. The findings indicate that students developed a global awareness from these experiences, which resulted in motivation to develop action strategies for protecting the endangered species. Student conceptions were divided into three groups; egocentric, guardianship and eco-centric.
Factors Influencing Schoolchildren's Responses to a Questionnaire in Wildlife Conservation Education
International Journal of Science Education, 2014
Questionnaires are important tools for assessing attitudes regarding conservation issues. However, they are not easily comparable and their reliability has been insufficiently assessed. We examined factors influencing responses to open-and closed-ended questions about animal conservation to more than 600 schoolchildren (9 years old on average). We analysed the level of understanding, controllable (e.g. sample size) and less controllable factors (e.g. affectivity). Most children responded appropriately to the questions, but subtle changes in the phrasing influenced the answers. Affectivity towards endearing species and spontaneity also influenced the responses whereas small sample sizes ( 50 children) provided relatively stable patterns. Overall, we suggest that standardization of questionnaires administered over large spatial and time scales is needed to accurately assess children's attitudes towards conservation issues.
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
Background: In addition to playing a key role in the dynamics of ecosystems, animal diversity, especially that of wild vertebrates, is intimately linked with human evolutionary history, which has resulted in diverse interactions that must be emphasized in formal education processes. We analyzed several methods of approaches used for biological education in order to teach about wild vertebrates and their conservation in urban and rural schools in the semi-arid region of Brazil. Methods: Data were obtained via questionnaires applied to 990 students, of which 528 were urban and 462 rural, distributed among the seven grades/years that comprise the last two cycles of basic education in Brazil. The richness and diversity of the animals cited by the students were calculated, being the diversity using an adaptation of the equation for the Shannon-Weaver Index (H′). Data were analyzed using non-parametric descriptive statistics. Results: Mammals and birds had the greatest richness and diversity of animals cited as most-studied in science/biology classes, and also the most indicated as occurring in the studied region. Among mammals, large carnivores with a showy appearance and utilitarian value had the highest citation frequencies, while there was a tendency for limited recognition of faunistic diversity in the other groups mentioned. Almost 70% of the students stated that their schooling processes dealt with the conservation of wild animals; however, about 50% of the students in both urban and rural contexts did not express conceptual understanding about the conservation of nature. Conclusions: The recognition of animal diversity, especially vertebrates, beyond just mammals and birds, as well as conceptual clarity about the conservation of nature, are fundamental factors for the development of critical awareness of fauna and its conservation, and where the processes of schooling have a preponderant role. Finally, the study contributes to the legitimization of Ethnobiology as an interdisciplinary field of knowledge, especially in its interface with education, in addition to pointing out the importance of optimizing efforts in approaches to biodiversity conservation in formal educational processes.
Pupils’ Awareness and Attitudes towards Wildlife Conservation in Two Districts in Tanzania
Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies, 2016
With increasing pressure on natural resources, biodiversity conservation will increasingly depend on public awareness and participation. Environmental education is an important tool for improving people’s understanding and motivation to cooperate and take initiatives for conservation and sustainable resource use. Although environmental education is included in the primary school curriculum in Tanzania, it places little emphasis on wildlife conservation, a situation that hinders orientation of future generation towards wildlife conservation. This study was conducted in Morogoro urban and Morogoro rural districts in Tanzania to explore pupils’ awareness and attitudes towards wildlife conservation. Combinations of questionnaires, formal and informal discussions were used to collect data. A total of 96 pupils participated in the study. The findings show that pupils from Morogoro Rural District (61%) had more knowledge of wildlife than Morogoro Urban District (39%). Many pupils (65 %) wa...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve holds a diversity of habitats and resources that are essential for migratory bird species’ conservation, and at the same time provides a rich milieu for the development of environmental education programs. This study evaluates the impact of a daylong and place-based environmental education program, performed at the Urdaibai Bird Center (UBC), on secondary education students’ environmental attitudes and knowledge. Students (n = 908) completed a written questionnaire where their perceptions on the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve and marshes, together with their interest in biodiversity, knowledge about bird migration and bird species identification skills, and attitudes towards conservation were assessed. Results show that students’ knowledge regarding Biosphere Reserves, marshes, and bird migration is limited, and that their bird identification skills are scarce. Although they scored high on environmental attitudes, a significant number of them feel that conserv...
Evaluation of Values, Beliefs and Norms of High School Students on the Conservation of Biodiversity
Journal of Turkish Science Education, 2017
This research evaluates the values, beliefs and norms on conserving biodiversity amongst Turkish Cypriot high school students and the results are compared according to gender and class year individually. The data was collected from 506 students via a value-belief-norm questionnaire. According to the results of this questionnaire, it is observed that the Turkish Cypriot high school students pay more attention towards the "self-administration" value, believe that their responsibility towards protecting the local and global biodiversity is more than their perception of talent to manage it and their personal norms regarding the conservation of biodiversity is very similar to each other. Furthermore, it can be concluded that gender and grade does have an effect on the values, beliefs and norms on preserving biodiversity.
PLOS ONE
The ability of high school students to know endangered species can vary among species (e.g., large body size can influence people's interest) or among municipalities (e.g., more contact with biodiversity can influence people's interest). Thus, in the present paper, we evaluated high school students' knowledge about the endangered and non-endangered mammalian species of the Brazilian Cerrado. We tested whether the recognition of the endangered and non-endangered species varied in a cross-species analysis (twelve total species) according to species characteristics, such as body size, popularity, endangered status and the length of time of inclusion on the endangered species list. Moreover, we tested whether the recognition of the endangered mammal species varied between municipalities (spatial analysis). We interviewed 366 students in their first year of high school in 21 schools (one in each municipality). Our results indicated that the proportion of correctly identified endangered species varied according to species (cross-species). The endangered species that were most often correctly identified were Myrmecophaga tridactyla (known by its popular name, Tamanduá-bandeira, in Brazil), Priodontes maximus (Tatu canastra) and Panthera onca (onça-pintada), with more than 80% correct answers. Thus, students tended to recognize the more popular species and the endangered species more than the nonendangered species. The analysis of student knowledge according to municipality demonstrated that the students' ability to recognize endangered species followed a spatial pattern. Finally, the cross-species and spatial variation patterns detected in the present study indicated the importance of formal education in increasing high school students' knowledge about endangered species and suggested that education should also promote less wellknown species, species with smaller body sizes, and other groups of vertebrates and invertebrates and consider local and regional biodiversity whenever possible.