Marine environmental protection knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and curricular involvement of Taiwanese primary school students in senior grades

Abstract

In recent years, rapid changes in the Earth's climate and environment have influenced our lives greatly. The ocean occupies 70% of the Earth's surface and is intimately related to the regulation of climate, fostering of life, and also to social economy, as well as sports and leisure. Students in the senior years of primary education are in a phase of developing value systems. Concurrently, these students are also constantly using the Earth's resources. More importantly, they will play leading roles in the next generation. From the perspective of education, the learning status of student's cognition, attitudes, and behaviors regarding protection of the marine environment must be understood more clearly to avoid future mismanagement of marine environmental problems on the part of these students. Hence, this study uses correlative, regressive, and path statistical analysis to examine data collected from questionnaires. Results show that student knowledge of and attitudes toward marine environmental protection do not have significant influences on behaviors; however, student's marine environmental protection knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors are all within the medium to high range. Because of relatively low student curricular involvement, and because involvement has no correlation with knowledge performance, this study infers that school curricula are not the main sources of student information and attitudes regarding marine environmental protection. Rather, building student attitudes toward marine environmental protection by increasing their involvement in field trips indirectly influences behaviors that are protective of the marine environment. Such an approach is comparatively more effective and can serve as a reference for modifying the implementation methods of marine protection curricula.

Evaluating Ocean Literacy of Elementary School Students: Preliminary Results of a Cross-Cultural Study in the Mediterranean Region

“…Our findings, in terms of students' knowledge level seems to be in line with studies from other countries (e.g., United States, United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada, South Africa, and Korea) focusing on similar school grades (Brody and Koch, 1986;Fortner and Mayer, 1989;Brody, 1996;Rodriguez-Martinez and Ortiz, 1999;Cummins and Snivelly, 2000;Ballantyne, 2004;Kim et al, 2013;Hartley et al, 2015Hartley et al, , 2018. To the best of our knowledge, only a study from Taiwan evidenced a high level of correct answers concerning knowledge of the marine environment (Wen and Lu, 2013). It should be noted though that most of these studies investigated students' knowledge only as a part of assessments addressing also attitudes and often behaviors.…”

“…It should be noted though that most of these studies investigated students' knowledge only as a part of assessments addressing also attitudes and often behaviors. Moreover, and probably due to the relative novelty of the ocean literacy framework, only a few studies have investigated specifically the knowledge concerning ocean literacy principles; Wen and Lu (2013) addressed only some of them, while Fauville et al (2018) investigated students aged 16 and older.…”

Marine environmental awareness among university students in Taiwan: a potential signal for sustainability of the oceans

“…Fletcher et al (2009) studied public awareness of marine environmental issues in the context of a marine museum. Wen and Lu (2013) examined marine environmental protection knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and curricular involvement of Taiwanese primary school students in senior grades. Boubonari, Markos, and Kevrekidis (2013) assessed Greek pre-service teachers' knowledge, attitudes, and environmental behavior toward marine pollution.…”

The Effects of the Trip Model on Students' Science Reading Ability and Marine Conservation Learning Interest

“…In recent years, the value of marine education has been acknowledged by a number of scholars and countries (Chang & Zhang, 2018;Lu & Liu, 2015;Wen & Lu, 2013). However, several studies (Chang & Zhang, 2018;Tsai et al, 2017) have noted various problems with existing marine education efforts, such as the difficulty of implementing effective educational efforts and the lack of public understanding of the ocean.…”

“…ISSN 1648-3898 /Print/ ISSN 2538-7138 /Online/ Wen and Lu (2013) found that school curriculums are not the main force in fostering primary school students' attitudes towards marine environmental protection. The above review of past studies shows that marine education is a complex and multifaceted issue.…”