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The Comparative Effects of Constructivist Versus Traditional Teaching Methods on the Environmental Literacy of Postsecondary Nonscience Majors

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jmwright{at}unr.nevada.edu.

	Abstract

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.

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