Direct Experience of Nature as a Predictor of Environmentally Responsible Behaviors
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis is an interesting study. The researchers found a strong relationship between childhood outdoor experiences and the shaping of environmentally responsible behavior. This provides direct evidence for families and societies to strengthen contact with nature during childhood.
Here are some ideas for further discussion with the authors:
（1）Environmental Education should not only refer to the way in which students are taught environmental knowledge by teachers in school. Should environment-related publicity and reporting on television, magazines and various media also be environmental education?
（2）Is there a correlation between the variables "Past exposure to Environmental Education" and "Outdoor experience"? Or is it cause and effect? Under normal circumstances, "outdoor experience" in addition to physical relaxation and leisure, will certainly enhance more environmental and natural knowledge in outdoor activities. Outdoor people accept environmental knowledge either actively or passively.
（3）The research results show that the correlation between Outdoor experience and Behavior is the most significant variable. However, the correlation between "Outdoor experience" and "Attitude" is weak. Can you give a reason for this? Generally speaking, the following logical relationships should exist: "Outdoor experience"---- "Attitude "----" Behavior ".
（4）Should the author give a specific definition of "Environmentally Responsible Behaviors" in the article? This paper is based on 143 students in grade 9 and Grade 10. However, ninth and 10th graders are high school students, and their "Environmentally Responsible Behaviors" differ somewhat from those of adults.
（5）Please further discuss and reveal the marginal contribution of this paper to similar research in the world. What are the differences between this study and similar studies in the world in terms of methods, selection of variables, and conclusions?
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageAuthor Response
Thank you for your valuable comments. In the following text, we proceed to answer your questions while we explain how we revised the manuscript to address them.
Concerning your first point, we agree in that environmental education should not be restricted to school-based education. The genre of environmental education that we are researching on is experiential environmental education with a strong outdoor component.
Concerning your second and third points, the issues that you raise are central for our research rationale; we will try to be as succinct as possible. When the instrument developers refer to environmental knowledge, what is meant is knowledge of environmental science. This point is tricky, and we have revised the manuscript by adding this clarification it in 2.3. Instrumentation:
“Most of the items in the instrument’s cognitive component cover principles of ecological science and global environmental issues, while a small part probes students’ knowledge about nation-wide environmental issues”.
We acknowledge that this represents a narrow aspect of environmental literacy, but this is the case for most environmental literacy instruments that are used in comparative studies.
Indeed, GELI focuses on knowledge of environmental science, and hence it cannot capture every aspect of environmental knowledge. There are several other forms of environmental knowledge that influence environmental learning, such as experiential knowledge, place-based knowledge and knowledge of local environmental issues.
We touch upon this issue in 3.2. Research Limitations, but we thought that the readers would be lost if we expanded the discussion to the different definitions of environmental literacy that can be found in the relevant literature.
Concerning the correlations, thanks for your point because it helped us understand that many readers might be having the same questions. In order to address these questions, we added three small paragraphs toward the end of 3. Results.
It is true that while past exposure to ESE, significant life experiences, and outdoor experience correlate significantly with students’ reported environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behaviors, at the same time there does not seem to be significant overlap between them (save for the overlap between past exposure to ESE and significant life experiences). This means that students who took part in ESE during their early schooling or had important figures in their lives affecting their attitude toward environmental issues did not demonstrate a higher participation rate in outdoor activities at the time of the study. Even though all three variables contain a signal of experiential learning, this signal was delivered to the students independently, in different temporal and educational contexts.
On another point that you make, we honestly do not know why the correlation of outdoor experience with behaviors is stronger than the one with attitude. However, we have seen that this pattern is repeated in Kyriazi’s independent sample of n=1010 first year university students. We have seen this in the preliminary analysis that we made in order to make sense of the data and possibly aiming for a future publication. Since the purpose of Kyriazi’s doctoral research was to assess baseline environmental literacy levels of first-year Greek University students in order to study (and propose improvements for) the teaching of ecology in formal education settings, she did not proceed to treat these situational variables as predictors of environmental literacy. Hence, we have discussed with Kyriazi and her former supervisor to work on a future paper comparing the two data sets. However, research is underfunded in this part of the world, so we have to take one step at a time.
The questions however remain and diversify. Thirty five years after Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera (1987) have written that “the prediction of [environmental] behavior is an extremely complex process which is based on a multitude of factors” (p.8), this variable remains largely elusive to this date.
Concerning your fourth point, you raise an important issue here. Indeed, the instrument was originally designed and validated with a sample of first-year university students, and later applied by us to 9th and 10th graders for the needs of the first author’s doctoral research, which was completed in 2021. We were indeed concerned about possible ensuing threats to validity (because of the different age of the student sample) and discussed about these in the thesis. In the manuscript, we have added an explanation to address this point at the closing of the 3.2. Research Limitations section.
As for type of environmental behaviors that we measured, again in 3.2. Research Limitations we have included in a description on the kind of behaviors that the instrument was intended to capture. Further, a comparison between GELI and the respective behavioral component of other environmental literacy instruments was made.
In your fifth point, you are asking for the manuscript’s contribution. We address this question in Part 4. Discussion, where new text is included in order to situate the findings in the existing literature.
Thanks again for your feedback that gave us the chance to improve this manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article is of great interest, with a correct structure and comprehensive presentation of the methodology. It also has a complete bibliographic presentation of the subject under investigation. There are a few comments if the authors want to consider them for further improvement of the manuscript. These suggestions are intended to clarify some points that may help the readers better understand the contribution of the research.
I noticed that the terms “environmental” and “pro-environmental” behavior are both used. Is there any difference between the two terms that need to be defined?
Since the main theme is an old and classic issue of research in environmental education (which is also reflected in the dates of the literature), it would be helpful to formulate more clearly the contribution of this specific research to the field.
The researchers used the GELI methodology as a measurement tool. As a reader I did not fully understand what the GELI tool entails. Is it a questionnaire? Is it for all ages? What are its questions or fields of questions?
Also, was only the quantity (or frequency) of contact with nature measured, or the content and quality with pedagogical criteria of that contact?
The research examines experiential outdoor learning. Nevertheless, the characteristics of the experiential outdoor learning that the children experienced in the context of the environmental education programs in Kalymnos island are not clear. This is important because it is involved with the measurement and evaluation that takes place in the palisade of this research
Author Response
Thank you for your valuable feedback. In the following text, we proceed to answer your questions while we explain how we revised the manuscript to address them.
Concerning your first point, we have added new text in Part 4. Discussion, in order to discuss manuscript’s contribution.
In your second question, you raise an important methodological issue. Indeed, the instrument was originally designed and validated with a sample of first-year university students, and later applied by us to 9th and 10th graders for the needs of the first author’s doctoral research, which was completed in 2021. We were indeed concerned about possible ensuing threats to validity (because of the different age of the student sample) and discussed about these in the thesis. In the manuscript, we have added an explanation to address this point at the closing of the 3.2. Research Limitations section.
We have also added text in 2.2. Data Collection, Analysis and Research Rationale and 2.3. Instrumentation in order to explain the instrument’s nature and functions in greater detail. The questionnaire’s sections and philosophy as well as some of the items are now featured in the manuscript.
Concerning the outdoor experience variable, we did not measure immersion, the content or quality with pedagogical criteria of that contact.
Instead, we followed prof. Erdogan’s rationale and hence we added the frequencies of students’ participation in a number of outdoor activities in their free time.
According to prof. Erdogan, experience in natural environments variable comprises of the frequency and intensity of learners’ direct, experiential contact with nature, based on their reported participation in a number of natural activities, such as camping and trekking.
However, for reasons of face validity we omitted the items of hunting and fishing from the construction of the variable – this point can be revisited by future research. Further, the items on students’ frequency of participation in team sports (basketball, soccer etc.) were also omitted since these activities do not meet the criterion of interaction “with the natural, rural and pristine habitats” [35].
Hence, after excluding the four items for the reasons explained above, we constructed the variable by giving equal weight to each of the following outdoor activities: (a) hiking, (b) camping, (c) nature photography, (d) biking and (e) other outdoor activity that meets the interaction with the natural environment criterion (Tanner, 1980).
As we explain in the manuscript, we refer to this algebraic construct as outdoor experience in order to distinguish it from Erdogan’s variable which was most probably constructed somewhat differently.
Further, the outdoor experience variable is of different nature compared to the past exposure to environmental education variable (which refers to school-based environmental education) or the significant life experiences variable (which refers to the presence of experiences or important figures in students’ lives that have influenced their perception of environmental issues).
We included have included these explanations in 2.3. Instrumentation.
Further, you suggest that there should be more information on the characteristics of the experiential outdoor learning that the children experienced in the context of the environmental education programs in Kalymnos. Indeed, this is something that we omitted.
In response to your comment, we added a paragraph toward the start of 4. Discussion in order to give the readers an idea about the content of the environmental education programs in Kalymnos during the 2017–2018 school year.
Thanks again for your feedback that gave us the chance to improve this manuscript!
