Development of an innovative method for analyzing the presence of environmental sustainability themes and an ecological paradigm in science content standards

doi:10.1016/j.stueduc.2014.01.002

Studies in Educational Evaluation

Volume 41, June 2014, Pages 133-142

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2014.01.002 Get rights and content

Highlights

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We developed a method to analyze content standards.
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The method was developed to determine the prevalence of environmental sustainability themes and ecological paradigm in content standards.
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We describe an iterative process for fine-tuning the effectiveness of the method.
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The findings suggested that the method could be used for analyzing content standards with expert coders.

Abstract

An iterative process for developing a method for analyzing Florida's K-12 Next Generation Sunshine State Standards science content was described. For this study, the researchers developed an innovative approach for analyzing the presence of environmental sustainability themes and an ecological paradigm within science content standards. The findings illustrate that detecting ecological thinking within the content standards is a complex and unwieldy process, even when the coders are experts in the content area. Despite this limitation, our expert coders rated the standards document with an overall agreement of 81%. Future research was discussed in terms of how our method could be used to further stakeholders’ understanding about how and to what extent ecological thinking is covered within science content standards.

Section snippets

Content selection

One of the most pressing issues for current and future generations is clearly environmental sustainability (ES). In 1972, the first international community met to discuss sustainability as a matter of importance (Fabricatore & López, 2012), but it has taken until recent years for the pertinence and urgency of this matter to be seriously addressed by society in general and the educational establishment in particular (Tilbury & Wortman, 2004). In the past two decades, undergraduate programs have

Purpose of the current study

The purpose of the current research is to report on the development of a methodological approach to analyzing the ES themes and ecological framework present in Florida's K-12 NGSSS for science. The project involved an iterative approach for the development of a method that began with using key terms to identify the presence of ES themes and an ecological paradigm. The first step in this iterative approach was the identification of key terms that facilitate the development of ES themes. Key

Theoretical framework

The theoretical framework used by the present researchers in their analysis of Florida's NGSSS for science derives from Sterling's (2001) ecological paradigm. The ecological paradigm recognizes humans as one aspect of a multifaceted, dynamic, and intensely interconnected world. Sterling (2001) describes three dimensions in the paradigm: perceptual, conceptual and practice. Sterling's (2001) framework encourages a relational view of the world focusing on people's ability to recognize patterns of

Research question

The current study focused on the development of a method for examining the discourse of Florida's K-12 NGSSS for science. The following question guided the emerging research process: How and to what extent does the coding method assist with identifying the following themes of ES and an ecological paradigm in the discourse of the Florida's K-12 NGSSS for science: (a) environmental impacts (EI), (b) biodiversity (BD), (c) population dynamics (PD), (d) energy transformation (ET) and other (a key

Quantitative analysis

We examined the degree to which content experts agreed with respect to how they rated each keyword in terms of the following: as being or not being an exemplar of an Eco-Knowledge Term, each of the four environmental sustainability themes, and finally, each of the four ecological paradigm criteria. We computed the percent of agreement of ratings, defined as the percentage of key terms that raters coded in the same way. This percent agreement measure does not account for chance agreement or

Limitations

Regarding future research, several potential limitations of this work could be addressed with further study. While for most criteria the percentage of agreement between coders met or exceeded 80%, there were several limitations revealed during the analysis of the data. First, the data source was not the complete body of K-12 NGSSS standards. Further work could be done to examine the quality of the standards in a more comprehensive manner by analyzing the entire body of K-12 science content

Significance

There is a dearth of research that systematically analyzes the extent to which science content standards include ES themes and ecological paradigm. In this study, we focused on how well EE experts consistently identified the ES themes and ecological thinking (as defined by Sterling, 2001) found in science standards. The findings suggest that at times, the standards are written in such a way that it is not always clear whether the standards represent an ecological paradigm. If experts struggle

Conclusion

The novelty of using content analysis to inform stakeholders’ understanding of science content standards in relation to ES themes and an ecological paradigm is an insightful and engaging approach for learning how EE experts can understand and interpret the discourse of standards documents. The use of keywords to prompt the experts to identify the exemplars of the ecological paradigm extant in the standards allowed the researchers to discover that the standards documents are not explicit, clear

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Barry Barker whose input in this project was invaluable. We would also like to thank Dr. Ron Chenail for his steadfast contribution to the ideas and design of this study. Finally, this research project was supported by the President's Faculty Research and Development Grant at the Abraham S. Fischler School of Education at Nova Southeastern University.

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View full text

Development of an innovative method for analyzing the presence of environmental sustainability themes and an ecological paradigm in science content standards

Highlights

Abstract

Section snippets

Content selection

Purpose of the current study

Theoretical framework

Research question

Quantitative analysis

Limitations

Significance

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Next generation sustainability

Independent School Magazine

High-stakes testing and curricular control: A qualitative metasynthesis

Educational Researcher

Bringing environmental sustainability to undergraduate engineering education: Experiences in an inter-disciplinary course

Journal of STEM Education

An analysis of the world's environment and population dynamics with varying carrying capacity, concerns and skepticism

Ecological Economics

Taxonomy of educational objectives. Vol. I: The cognitive domain

Education for sustainability as a frame of mind

Environmental Education Research

Education for the twenty-first century

Environmental education is centerpiece of school sustainability effort

Momentum

Content analysis – writing@CSU

Environmental science

Deciding what to teach and test: Developing, aligning, and leading the curriculum

Instruction: A models approach

Sustainability learning through gaming: An exploratory study

Electronic Journal of e-Learning

Analyzing discourse: Textual analysis for social research

Education for sustainability: Reorientating Australian schools for a sustainable future.

Environmental education

Greening of a K-12 school system

School Administrator

Pedagogy of the oppressed

Using standards and high-stakes testing for students: Exploiting power with critical pedagogy

An education leader's guide to curriculum mapping: Creating and sustaining collaborative cultures

Australia's sustainability: A new policy front for rural education?

Education in Rural Australia

Indices of climate change for the United States

Bulletin of American Meteorological Society

What is sustainable development? Goals, indicators, values and practice

Environment

Linking learning outcomes and assessment of learning of student science teachers

Science Education International

Standards