The environmental education is based on the assumption that accurate knowledge and attitude could be linked to real action, but those have no effect on changing the behavior. To effect the change in behavior, we need to consider the reflective thinkin...
The environmental education is based on the assumption that accurate knowledge and attitude could be linked to real action, but those have no effect on changing the behavior. To effect the change in behavior, we need to consider the reflective thinking which can make people change their behavior. As one of the strategy to accelerate the reflectivethinking, the reflective thinking process and the interaction between students were taken. And also, it is more proper if the contents are based on the real experiences of the students. Thus, this study tries to know whether the improvement of reflective thinking is able to affect to the environmental behavior.
The environment education program was applied to the 60 elementary school 6th grade students in Gyeonggi-do and the survey methods were presented in the general experimental curriculum. To study 6th subjects(energy, harmful chemical material, heavy metal and agricultural chemicals, food additive, environmental friendly consumption, and recycle) was developed. This study shows the effect of the program on the environment knowledge, the environment behavior, the level of reflectivethinking and communication ability. The analysis methods were ANCOVA and Correlation Analysis using SPSS 15.0.
The results of this study are as follows.
First, the group taking the class using the strategy of the reflectivethinking, improved the environmental knowledge with the reasonable meaning(p<.01). Specially, regarding the area of energy, recycle(p<.05) and food additive(p<.01), there was meaningful difference between the two groups. It shows that the class using the strategy of the reflectivethinking which can reconstruct the existed knowledge when they face with actual problems is effective to improve the environmental knowledge.
Second, the group taking the class using the strategy of the reflectivethinking, improved the environmental behavior with the reasonable meaning(p<.01) compared to the group taking the formal class. Specially, regarding the area of recycle(p<.05) and food additive(p<.05), there was the meaningful difference between two groups, it shows that the class using the strategy of the reflectivethinking which can relate the subject to their experiences is effective to improve the environmental behavior.
Third, the group taking the class using the strategy of the reflectivethinking, improved the reflective thinking and the criticized thinking in level of the reflectivethinking with the reasonable meaning(p<.01) compared to the group taking the formal class. It shows that the reflective thinking process and the interaction between students to find the solutions of problems that are for the strategy of the reflectivethinking make the improvement for the level of the reflectivethinking.
Forth, the group, taking the class using the strategy of the reflectivethinking, improved the communication ability with the reasonable meaning(p<.05) compared to the group taking the formal class. Specially, regarding the area listening attentively and grasp of other’s thought(p<.05). it shows that the discussions and the consents improved the communication ability by accepting the other’s opinions.
Finally, higher level of reflective thinking shows higher level of the relation with environmental behavior(r=.663). There was reasonable meaning(p<.01). Also reflective thinking shows the relation with environmental knowledge(r=.419). There was reasonable meaning(p<.05) and the communication ability shows high mutual relation(r=.780) and has the reasonable meaning(p<.01).
As the result of this survey, the class using the strategy of the reflectivethinking is able to be used for the education of environmental study because it is very useful to improve the environmental knowledge, the environmental behavior, the ability of the reflective thinking, and the ability of the communication.