Environmental Education: Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples in Western Siberia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article is very well written and very interesting to read.  The intertwine between indigenous knowledge, environmental conservation and informal environmental education systems is very well explained. 

The attempt by the authors to contribute towards measuring of the effectiveness of environmental education is fair but can be improved by addressing the following:

• Enhancing the application of Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The simplistic application of this theory through the simple 12-item questionnaire is an injustice to the rich concepts of TPB.  Since the data collection cannot be re-run at this stage, the authors should consider providing more supportive literature to justify the choice to use TPB.
• The mapping between traditional relations of indigenous people and SDGs (figure 1) requires more explanation.  It is also not clear why bi-directional arrows are used in these mappings - an explanation for this will improve the readability of the paper.  The lack of sufficient details also applies to the content presented in table 1
• Check for missing space between [25] and This, on line 258. Also, in line 260,  it is difficult for the reader to identify reference "Heeren et al', including the actual reference number [?] will help. Another type in line 263, do the authors mean "12 each" or "4 each"?
• Presentation of tables 2 to 4 can be improved; for instance, why include so many decimal places? Table 4 is better off presented in landscape format.
• The data analysis presented in lines 269 to 304 focuses too much on gender aspects yet this had nothing much to do with the objective of dataset.  If possible, the analysis related to the aspects of the program design (currently briefly presented in table 1) would be more interesting to reader.
• The conclusion presented in lines 367 to 369 looks like an assumption rather than a finding and it should be corrected.
• Citation for conclusion made in line 380 should be supported by literature., e.g. Ezzine-de-Blas, D., Corbera, E. and Lapeyre, R., 2019. Payments for environmental services and motivation crowding: towards a conceptual framework. Ecological economics, 156, pp.434-443.

Author Response

We thank you for your interest in our paper and for your efforts to improve it. We tried to take into account your recommendations and below described the changes that we made for each point.

• Enhancing the application of Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The simplistic application of this theory through the simple 12-item questionnaire is an injustice to the rich concepts of TPB. Since the data collection cannot be re-run at this stage, the authors should consider providing more supportive literature to justify the choice to use TPB.

We justified the choice of TPB as a tool for studying the influence of intention on human behavior and noted the limitations of this theory. We hypothesized that an educational program would not only motivate people to behave responsibly towards nature, but also increase their confidence that such behavior is possible and can be a successful experience. Therefore, we used TPB to measure attitudes, norms and perceived behavioral control (PBC). In addition, we supplemented the analysis of the results with an analysis of the measured elements: attitudes, norms and perceived behavioral control (PBC). Therefore, we made changes to the Materials and Methods (lines 287-303), Results (lines 332-345; 351-363) and Discussion sections (lines 406-421).

Unfortunately, we did not have the opportunity to carry out a broader study due to the outbreak of the pandemic. We have indicated this limitation in the Research Limitations (lines 503-507). However, in the future, we plan to conduct focus groups and semi-structured interviews to improve the educational program so that we provide insight into how individual resources, capabilities and knowledge might influence the decision to engage in sustainable behavior.

 

• The mapping between traditional relations of indigenous people and SDGs (figure 1) requires more explanation.  It is also not clear why bi-directional arrows are used in these mappings - an explanation for this will improve the readability of the paper.  The lack of sufficient details also applies to the content presented in table 1

We added some explanations to figure 2 (lines 206-217) and table 1 (lines 259-271).

• Check for missing space between [25] and This, on line 258. Also, in line 260, it is difficult for the reader to identify reference "Heeren et al', including the actual reference number [?] will help. Another type in line 263, do the authors mean "12 each" or "4 each"?

 

Thank you for your careful reading of our text. We have eliminated the shortcomings (lines 284, 303).

• Presentation of tables 2 to 4 can be improved; for instance, why include so many decimal places? Table 4 is better off presented in landscape format.

 

We have changed the form of data presentation supposing that now they will become more visually compelling. Figure 3-4, Table 2-3.

• The data analysis presented in lines 269 to 304 focuses too much on gender aspects yet this had nothing much to do with the objective of dataset. If possible, the analysis related to the aspects of the program design (currently briefly presented in table 1) would be more interesting to reader.

 

In fact, the content and forms of the education program (presented in table 1) are discussed in lines 380-394 section Discussion. We are very sorry that we were not able to emphasize this. We added some references to table 1.

 

• The conclusion presented in lines 367 to 369 looks like an assumption rather than a finding and it should be corrected.

 

We have excluded the conclusion.

• Citation for conclusion made in line 380 should be supported by literature., e.g. Ezzine-de-Blas, D., Corbera, E. and Lapeyre, R., 2019. Payments for environmental services and motivation crowding: towards a conceptual framework. Ecological economics, 156, pp.434-443.

We agree with your comments and have included this source in the article [58].

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting paper and topic but there are several significant problems with the study - some of which the authors have hinted at themselves.

The study participants were exposed to a traditional way of life which was presented to them as ecological - and then participants were asked if they would perform certain ecological behaviours as 'modern' people following inspiration from this exposure. I don't see the connection at all - and the kinds of behaviours that were studied by the questionnaire i.e. recycling, saving electricity etc. are not those that are needed in traditional ways of life. As for nanny dogs, there may be many non-indigenous people who have pets as dogs and allow them to be around their children and take care of them in some way, and who practise unsustainable behaviours at the same time. Indigenous ways of life do involve biodiversity conservation and thinking of future generations - it can be imagined that a group of young agriculturalists would have learnt from the time spent in this camp as they are in a position to make choices regarding biodiversity conservation etc. For the study participants who were chosen - I think that the questionnaire on whether they are inspired to recycle, save electricity etc. is inappropriate. Instead, they should have been asked about appreciation of nature, their support for nature conservation etc. 

I think it is a romanticization to use the argument that women are interested to make sustainable choices because of biological drives. It is an argument that exists and is contested and the contestation should be referred to. Rather, studies of gender and ecological consumption should be more thoroughly explored. 

Author Response

Thank you for your interest in our research and for your recommendations that helped us improve the paper. We took the liberty of highlighting a few points in your review to clarify our position.

The study participants were exposed to a traditional way of life which was presented to them as ecological - and then participants were asked if they would perform certain ecological behaviours as 'modern' people following inspiration from this exposure. I don't see the connection at all - and the kinds of behaviours that were studied by the questionnaire i.e. recycling, saving electricity etc. are not those that are needed in traditional ways of life. 

Using the questionnaire, we measured the effectiveness of the environmental education program: to what extent it is able to achieve its goal and contribute to the formation of a more responsible attitude towards nature, which is an important result in the context of an environmental crisis. Therefore, TPB was chosen as a tool for measuring its effectiveness, which allows noticing a change in intentions to behave sustainably, even if such behavior has not yet become a social norm. According to this theory, intentions do not depend on information; our efforts to follow any behavior is much influenced by the general mood for success. The described program is a demonstration of such a successful experience of fostering a harmonious relationship with nature. The program was expected to have impacted the intention to behave more sustainably. However, TPB has a limitation: intention and perceived control should be assessed in relation to specific behavior (lines 287-303). Therefore, we used a description of specific practices in which modern students can be involved. In addition, most of the questions have already been tested in some previous studies (Alexander John Heeren, Ajay S. Singh, Adam Zwickle, Tomas M. Koontz, Kristina M. Slagle, Anna C. McCreery, (2016) "Is sustainability knowledge half the battle?: An examination of sustainability knowledge, attitudes, norms, and efficacy to understand sustainable behaviours", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 17 Issue: 5, pp.613-632).

As for nanny dogs, there may be many non-indigenous people who have pets as dogs and allow them to be around their children and take care of them in some way, and who practise unsustainable behaviours at the same time. Indigenous ways of life do involve biodiversity conservation and thinking of future generations - it can be imagined that a group of young agriculturalists would have learnt from the time spent in this camp as they are in a position to make choices regarding biodiversity conservation etc. 

In this case, it is not the story itself that is important, but the impression it makes on the visitors is more important, being included in the context of the culture of indigenous peoples and the atmosphere of the ethnic camp. The story is presented here as an example of the content elements of the educational program, demonstrating the close connection between indigenous communities and nature. The awareness of close connection with nature, rather than communication with pets makes indigenous peoples behave responsibly toward it.

For the study participants who were chosen - I think that the questionnaire on whether they are inspired to recycle, save electricity etc. is inappropriate. Instead, they should have been asked about appreciation of nature, their support for nature conservation etc.

Such a questionnaire is a very important addition to the research already carried out. Unfortunately, we did not have this opportunity due to the outbreak of the pandemic. We have added an indication of this in the Research Limitations. However, in the future, we plan to conduct focus groups and semi-structured interviews to improve the educational program. These will also provide insights into how individual resources, capabilities and knowledge might influence the decision to engage in sustainable behavior (lines 503-507).

I think it is a romanticization to use the argument that women are interested to make sustainable choices because of biological drives. It is an argument that exists and is contested and the contestation should be referred to. Rather, studies of gender and ecological consumption should be more thoroughly explored.

Revealing gender differences was not the purpose of the study. However, since this result turned out to be one of the most noticeable, we dwelt on it in detail. We also concluded that this issue need more research in the future, but this is unlikely to be associated with this educational program. We have changed the form of data presentation supposing that now data will become more visually compelling (Figure 3-4, Table 2-3).

Reviewer 3 Report

This is very appealing research, though still needs revision.  I was fascinated to read about the ethnic camp, and interested in your gender findings from the questionnaire data.  However, efforts to link the data analysis results to TPB and the environmental education offered through the camp were not as convincing.  This is the part of the paper that needs the most revision.  

A few general recommendations:

 

1. More background on TPB, especially its recognized limitations, would be helpful. It seems you introduce it early on, but then it is mostly dropped except for a few hints in the Discussion section.  I feel as if you never fully justified why it is a good choice for this research (vs. other theories), or how it helped you analyze your results.
2. Also, add a brief discussion to explain your choice of statistical measures of significance
3. I found Figure 2 very helpful to visualize gender trends. Could you also generate a similar figure to compare the control and experimental groups, if relevant?  
4. And a map! I was very curious to know where the camp is located.
5. The timing of the different surveys (pre and during pandemic), as you note toward the conclusion, is likely important and should be covered much earlier in your methodology section.
6. The most troublesome sections for me were the Discussion and Conclusions, since they both are based on the assumption that the experience of visiting the ethnic camp can and should be quantitatively measured to determine direct impact on shaping future environmental behaviour, an assertion presumably bolstered by the linear reasoning model championed by TPB theory. I’m not convinced that is even a useful way to approach the issue in the first place, but it also seems to constrain the meaningful contributions your analysis could have if you weren’t trying to prove or disprove that specific theory. Your conclusion that a one-time visit to the camp probably won’t change anyone’s behavior is quite reasonable, but I don’t think you have either empirical data or theoretical grounding to suggest as you do (lines 428-429) that the solution is to require alterations to the environmental education program.
7. I’m tempted to suggest one could almost reverse the order of the argument: questionnaire data establishes the baseline attitudes and behaviors you identify amongst a young, educated population.  Since it is entirely possible the single most important difference between the control group and the experimental group was not a brief visit to Uvas Mir Khot, but instead global pandemic, you might even treat both as similarly reflective of youth attitudes toward the environment.  Then, ethnic camp can be introduced as a very innovative potential contribution to environmental education, re-thinking a broader environmental education for a larger audience.
8. As you also state on lines 407-409, it is well recognized that the effects of this kind of education may be long-term. Would a longitudinal follow up questionnaire be possible?
9. Finally, from a completely different perspective, I was immediately struck by the ways that the ethnic camp experience as you describe it fits very well with tourism studies of liminal spaces and the whole question of ‘staged authenticity.’ While all the information presented may be very authentic in the daily lives of the local inhabitants, I wonder to what extent visitors experience more of an exotic break from their everyday lives as ‘environmental tourists’ seeing a glimpse into worlds that don’t translate to their own environments.  Maybe the problem is not the environmental education programs designed by the peoples of the north, but how well equipped university students are to absorb and adapt it to their own lives.

Author Response

Thank you for your interest in our research and for your valuable recommendations, which have helped us not only to improve this manuscript but also to complement the program of our future research.  Thanks to your recommendations, we have changed the following things:

 

1. More background on TPB, especially its recognized limitations, would be helpful. It seems you introduce it early on, but then it is mostly dropped except for a few hints in the Discussion section. I feel as if you never fully justified why it is a good choice for this research (vs. other theories), or how it helped you analyze your results.

  

We justified the choice of TPB as a tool for studying the influence of intention on human behavior and added the limitations of this theory. We hypothesized that an educational program would not only motivate people to behave responsibly towards nature but also increase their confidence that such behavior is possible and can be a successful experience. Therefore, we used TPB to measure attitudes, norms and perceived behavioral control (PBC). Besides, we supplemented the analysis of the results with an analysis of the measured elements: attitudes, norms and perceived behavioral control (PBC). Thus, we made changes to the Materials and Methods (lines 287-303), Results (lines 332-345; 351-363) and Discussion sections (lines 406-421).

 

 

1. Also, add a brief discussion to explain your choice of statistical measures of significance

 

We have included a description of criterion selection in Materials and Methods section (lines 317-320).

 

1. I found Figure 2 very helpful to visualize gender trends. Could you also generate a similar figure to compare the control and experimental groups, if relevant?

 

We have changed the form of data presentation supposing that now data will become more visually compelling (Figure 3-4, Table 2-3).

 

1. And a map! I was very curious to know where the camp is located.

 

We added the map as Figure 1.

 

1. The timing of the different surveys (pre and during pandemic), as you note toward the conclusion, is likely important and should be covered much earlier in your methodology section.

 

We have added some information about the timing and conditions of the study at the beginning of Materials and Methods section (lines 313-315).

 

1. The most troublesome sections for me were the Discussion and Conclusions, since they both are based on the assumption that the experience of visiting the ethnic camp can and should be quantitatively measured to determine direct impact on shaping future environmental behaviour, an assertion presumably bolstered by the linear reasoning model championed by TPB theory. I’m not convinced that is even a useful way to approach the issue in the first place, but it also seems to constrain the meaningful contributions your analysis could have if you weren’t trying to prove or disprove that specific theory. Your conclusion that a one-time visit to the camp probably won’t change anyone’s behavior is quite reasonable, but I don’t think you have either empirical data or theoretical grounding to suggest as you do (lines 428-429) that the solution is to require alterations to the environmental education program.

 

We agree with you that any measurement in the humanities requiring the transfer of the qualitative characteristics of the studied phenomenon, which is sustainable behavior in our case, into quantitative indicators is often accompanied by so-called side effects in the interpretation of the results. This is confirmed by the fact that most studies on sustainable behavior were presented without actualization. We also agree with your opinion that it is difficult to immediately measure the direct impact of a one-time visit to the ethnic camp on visitors’ further sustainable behavior. At the same time, we consider the questionnaire as justified methodology for assessing the quality of non-formal environmental education. This methodology will be used as a basis for making changes to our environmental education program that is considered as an element of non-formal environmental education (lines 471-480).

 

1. I’m tempted to suggest one could almost reverse the order of the argument: questionnaire data establishes the baseline attitudes and behaviors you identify amongst a young, educated population. Since it is entirely possible the single most important difference between the control group and the experimental group was not a brief visit to Uvas Mir Khot, but instead global pandemic, you might even treat both as similarly reflective of youth attitudes toward the environment. Then, ethnic camp can be introduced as a very innovative potential contribution to environmental education, re-thinking a broader environmental education for a larger audience.

 

We agree with your comments. The described program, and most importantly, its analysis is not the end product of our work on the development of non-formal environmental education. We have just started to create a monitoring system that monitors the effectiveness of this program in particular and non-formal environmental education in general. The analysis of the questionnaire and the attitudes towards sustainable behavior revealed in it can serve as a basis for their correction. For example, to increase the indicator - intentions in sustainable behavior, after the immersion in the atmosphere of the life of the indigenous peoples of the North, we can invite the participants to think about analogies and opportunities of applying the gained knowledge to visitors’ daily environmental practice. It is important to note that we consider our program as an impetus, a "trigger" for changes in behavior motivation towards environmentally friendly, sustainable behavior (lines 471-480; 495-507).

 

 

1. As you also state on lines 407-409, it is well recognized that the effects of this kind of education may be long-term. Would a longitudinal follow up questionnaire be possible?

 

Perhaps, the students will feel the effect of the education program later; thus, it makes sense to re-measure the effectiveness after a while, using a longitudinal follow up questionnaire (lines 452-454).

 

1. Finally, from a completely different perspective, I was immediately struck by the ways that the ethnic camp experience as you describe it fits very well with tourism studies of liminal spaces and the whole question of ‘staged authenticity.’ While all the information presented may be very authentic in the daily lives of the local inhabitants, I wonder to what extent visitors experience more of an exotic break from their everyday lives as ‘environmental tourists’ seeing a glimpse into worlds that don’t translate to their own environments. Maybe the problem is not the environmental education programs designed by the peoples of the north, but how well equipped university students are to absorb and adapt it to their own lives.

 

We are grateful for such an interesting clue. Obviously, the visitors’ experience to an ethnic camp can be considered within the framework of tourism experience research. But this might divert us from the object of study that is the education program. Therefore, we will abstain from such a focus in this study.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I see that the authors have tried hard to address the concerns raised by all the reviewers. Therefore, this paper can be accepted, though I still do not agree with the research design. As long as the authors acknowledge the limitations of the research design explicitly, the paper will contribute towards the field of environmental education.