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Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society
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The Comparative Effects of Constructivist Versus Traditional Teaching Methods on the Environmental Literacy of Postsecondary Nonscience Majors

J. Michael Wright

University of Nevada, Reno

Using a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental control group design, a learning environment study was conducted to evaluate the environmental literacy of postsecondary, nonscience majors. Data were collected from 183 students taking an introductory environmental science class—a 41-question Environmental Literacy Instrument (ELI) prompted students for responses across four subscales of environmental literacy: Knowledge, Beliefs, Opinions, and Self-Perceptions. Differences between presurvey and postsurvey scores were compared to determine whether a constructivist-based or traditional learning environment improved students' environmental literacy more. Results showed that the constructivist-based curriculum was not a significant factor of influence, suggesting that regardless of which learning environment they were exposed to, participants experienced similar improvements to their environmental literacy across a 16-week semester. Given that the findings were contrary to expectations, and counterindicated by several other learning environment studies as well, a broader investigation as to why the two learning environments produced similar results is warranted.

Key Words: constructivism • environmental literacy • environmental science • environmental knowledge • environmental beliefs • learning environment

This version was published on August 1, 2008

Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 28, No. 4, 324-337 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0270467608319638
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