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