Post on 14-Dec-2015
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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
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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
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The Biohead-Citizen project
Conceptions of (future) teachersThe main goal is to clarify their structureand analyse them as social representations
Personal informationA specific part of the questionnaire
+ disseminated political questions
Throughout 16 countries
Potential impact on what is taught at school
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Environmental Education
Teachers’ environmental attitudes
“Collection of beliefs, affect and behavioural intentionsa person holds regarding environmentally related
activities or issues” (Schultz et al, 2004)
Cognitive structure
Goal: Better prediction of behaviours
Two-dimensional ecocentric-anthropocentric paradigm(Thompson and Barton, 1994; Bogner et al, 2000)
LIRDHISTThe Biohead-Citizen questionnaire
Structure of questions = issues of interest
Environmentalattitudes
Utilization(anthropocentric)
Preservation(ecolocentric)
Question 1
Question 2
…
A4
A8
LIRDHISTThe Biohead-Citizen questionnaire
Structure of individuals = sampling groups
Country
P1 - Portugal
P2 - France
P3 - Germany
…
Teaching groups
InB – In service biology secondary
PreP – Pre service secondary
…
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Describing the data
Answers to the questions
A numeric coding is used
A16: Our planet has unlimited natural resources
4321I agree I don’t agree
Likert scalePT FI HU RO MA FR SN IT CY ES LB TN
1 33 4 7 20 213 29 132 35 36 11 443 333
2 40 1 7 25 38 12 48 22 35 0 88 129
3 55 12 41 36 17 62 36 46 69 5 41 86
4 223 289 279 192 62 629 108 456 182 167 150 205
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Describing the data
Answers to the questionsA16: Our planet has unlimited natural resources
LIRDHISTMultivariate statistical analysis
Purposes
Global dependence between questions/issues according to theoretical expectations
Different attitudes across sampling groups:
• regarding all issues.• regarding particular issues
Structure of questions
Structure of individuals
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A1 A4 A5 A7
Q1 2 1 3 4
Q2 1 1 2 3
Q3 3 2 3 2
Q4 1 2 2 4
Q5 3 1 3 1
V1 V2 V3 V4
Q1 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.1
Q2 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.1
Q3 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2
Q4 0.3 0.5 0.2 0.1
Q5 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.2
Multivariate statistical analysis
Basic principle
Questionnaire New variables
Capturing synthetic components
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Properties of the new components
• Independence : no correlationbetween the components
• Variance partition: ordering by decreasing variance
V1 V2 V3 V4
A1 0.5 1.2 -0.1 0.3
A4 -0.3 0.1 0.6 1.1
A5 0.6 -1.0 0.8 -2.2
A7 0.8 0.9 0.0 0.4
• Components are linear combinations of questions
Multivariate statistical analysis
V1 = 0.5A1 - 0.3A2 + 0.6A3 + 0.8A4
LIRDHISTMultivariate statistical analysis
Main methods available
• Correspondance Analysis (CA): chi-squaredistance, well suited to categorical data.
• Principal Component Analysis (PCA): euclideandistance between individuals.
Only with quantitative data
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V1 V2
Multivariate statistical analysis
Featuring the variation in attitudes
Variance according to the components
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15 questions– Principal Component Analysis
Arrow for Likert scale
4321
Characterizing the attitudes
Structure of attitudes
Environmental attitudes
Preservation
UtilizationV1
V2
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Environmental attitudes
What most differentiates the attitudes in socio-cultural groups
• Look for combinations of questions that mostdifferentiate the groups
• One can relate the new components to thestructure of the basic PCA analysis
Between-group analysis
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Structure of individualsIs the differentiation significant ?
Country groups
Randomization test
Actualdifferentiation
p-value < 0.001
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Structure of individualsWhat most differentiates the groups
• This kind of analysis may be applied either toseparate issues or to the whole questionnaire.
• One may investigate differentiation betweencountries, religions, teaching groups… accordingto specific hypotheses.
Between-group analysis
• Analysis on groups inside any country.
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Structure of individuals
Controlling for the effect of country
• Look for attitudes that are independent fromthe teachers’ nationality
Orthogonal analysis
• Point out if a common structure emerges throughout the countries
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Structure of individualsOrthogonal analysis controlling for country
No difference between countries
Preservation
Utilization
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Looking for causes
Orthogonal analysis
• Analysing attitudes independently from the effectof a given factor
Controlling the effect of one factor
• We separate out the effect of both factors
Independent test of another factor
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Looking for causes
Some factors can be counfounding• Religion and country are not independent
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1 - Orthogonal analysis controlling for religion
No difference between religion groups
Looking for causes
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2 - Independent effect of countryDifferences between countries independent from religion
Looking for causes
LIRDHISTAnalysis of the cognitive structure
Non-parametric statistical framework
1- Global PCA: effect of both A and B
Investigating the effect of two factors 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
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Opening up the discussion
Multivariate analysis helps clarifying the structure of environmental attitudes
What are the attitudes according towhich 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
LIRDHIST
Opening up the discussion
Multivariate analysis helps clarifying the structure of environmental attitudes
What are the attitudes according towhich 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