Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue

Biodiversity conservation issues are adequate topics of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), as they involve ecological, economic and social aspects. But teaching about these topics often challenges teachers due to high factual complexity but also because of additional affective dimensions....

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Published in:Sustainability
Main Authors: Alexander Georg Büssing, Maike Schleper, Susanne Menzel
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/su11010047
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spelling ftmdpi:oai:mdpi.com:/2071-1050/11/1/47/ 2023-08-20T04:05:47+02:00 Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue Alexander Georg Büssing Maike Schleper Susanne Menzel agris 2018-12-21 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.3390/su11010047 EN eng Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute Sustainable Education and Approaches https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su11010047 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Sustainability; Volume 11; Issue 1; Pages: 47 teaching motivation values attitudes psychological distance return of the wolf Text 2018 ftmdpi https://doi.org/10.3390/su11010047 2023-07-31T21:55:29Z Biodiversity conservation issues are adequate topics of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), as they involve ecological, economic and social aspects. But teaching about these topics often challenges teachers due to high factual complexity but also because of additional affective dimensions. As a consequence, teacher professional development in ESD should address these affective components, to better qualify and motivate teachers to integrate conservation issues into their teaching. To investigate behaviourally relevant factors, we selected the context of natural remigration and conservation of the grey wolf (Canis lupus) in Germany and surveyed 120 pre-service biology teachers (M = 23.2 years, SD = 3.3 years) about contextual factors and their motivation to teach about the issue. Participants reported more positive attitudes, higher enjoyment and an increased perceived behavioural control towards teaching the issue in future teachers when they perceived a smaller psychological distance to the issue and an overall higher motivation to protect the species. As this motivation was grounded in more fundamental personality characteristics like wildlife values and attitudes towards wolves, we discuss the central role of these traits as a basis for transformative learning processes and the necessity of a holistic and subject-specific teacher professional development in ESD. Text Canis lupus MDPI Open Access Publishing Sustainability 11 1 47
institution Open Polar
collection MDPI Open Access Publishing
op_collection_id ftmdpi
language English
topic teaching motivation
values
attitudes
psychological distance
return of the wolf
spellingShingle teaching motivation
values
attitudes
psychological distance
return of the wolf
Alexander Georg Büssing
Maike Schleper
Susanne Menzel
Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue
topic_facet teaching motivation
values
attitudes
psychological distance
return of the wolf
description Biodiversity conservation issues are adequate topics of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), as they involve ecological, economic and social aspects. But teaching about these topics often challenges teachers due to high factual complexity but also because of additional affective dimensions. As a consequence, teacher professional development in ESD should address these affective components, to better qualify and motivate teachers to integrate conservation issues into their teaching. To investigate behaviourally relevant factors, we selected the context of natural remigration and conservation of the grey wolf (Canis lupus) in Germany and surveyed 120 pre-service biology teachers (M = 23.2 years, SD = 3.3 years) about contextual factors and their motivation to teach about the issue. Participants reported more positive attitudes, higher enjoyment and an increased perceived behavioural control towards teaching the issue in future teachers when they perceived a smaller psychological distance to the issue and an overall higher motivation to protect the species. As this motivation was grounded in more fundamental personality characteristics like wildlife values and attitudes towards wolves, we discuss the central role of these traits as a basis for transformative learning processes and the necessity of a holistic and subject-specific teacher professional development in ESD.
format Text
author Alexander Georg Büssing
Maike Schleper
Susanne Menzel
author_facet Alexander Georg Büssing
Maike Schleper
Susanne Menzel
author_sort Alexander Georg Büssing
title Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue
title_short Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue
title_full Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue
title_fullStr Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue
title_full_unstemmed Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue
title_sort do pre-service teachers dance with wolves? subject-specific teacher professional development in a recent biodiversity conservation issue
publisher Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
publishDate 2018
url https://doi.org/10.3390/su11010047
op_coverage agris
genre Canis lupus
genre_facet Canis lupus
op_source Sustainability; Volume 11; Issue 1; Pages: 47
op_relation Sustainable Education and Approaches
https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su11010047
op_rights https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
op_doi https://doi.org/10.3390/su11010047
container_title Sustainability
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