Environmental Knowledge Measurement: Conceptual and Operationalization Approaches and Problems of Past Research

This paper reviews the most interesting research on environmental knowledge conducted in various fields (media, education, public opinion research, social science research), & analyzes instruments (quizzes, tests, objective scales, self-assessment scales) used to measure the construct. Environmental knowledge is the least developed field of environmental research. The number of published research & papers on the subject is far below the number of those focused on attitudes & behavior, & the quality of developed instruments is also lower compared to those in other fields of environmental research. The main weakness of the previous research is superficial conceptualization & lack of clear definition of the measured subject. Environmental knowledge is mostly reduced to knowledge of main ecology concepts & actual environmental problems, while other aspects of the problem area are being neglected. Unsatisfactory operationalization is also a frequent characteristic of applied instruments, & some potentially interesting instruments are made completely useless due to elementary mistakes in item formulation. So far, no research on environmental knowledge of any population has been conducted in Croatia. The fact is explained by the lack of social actors interested in serious environmental education & able to realize such an interest. 75 References. Adapted from the source document.