Contribution To Individualized Environmental Education

Aspasia Karagiannopoulou, Fragiskos Batzias, Odysseas Kopsidas

Dep. Industrial Management and Technology, Univ. Piraeus

80 Karaoli & Dimitriou, GR 18534 Piraeus, Greece, tel. +302104142360, fax +302104142392,
email: fbatzi@unipi.gr

Abstract. In this work, we modify the Holland’ s methodology for the categorization of human personalities
by including queries (in the corresponding questionnaire that serves as an evaluation tool) investigating its
responders attitude as regards his/her willingness to be professionally engaged with the natural or/and
anthropogenic environment. The population used as representative sample consisted of 250 students following
courses at high school and university level. The quantitative methods used were descriptive statistics, parametric
and non-parametric statistics hypothesis (on causal relations) testing, categorical semantics, ontological mapping
fuzzy sets and interval algebra. The results obtained showed relative significant internal consistency at macro-
level for almost half of the interviewees, but the dependence of answers to environmental queries on the rest
responds to the rest queries was insignificant, indicating lack of specific knowledge and clarification of the
corresponding concepts at micro-level.
Keywords: Environmental Education, Holland’s Theory, Questionnaire Design, Hypothesis Testing,
Vocational Typology.

INTRODUCTION
The central hypothesis in Holland's theory is that the vocational interests is a key aspect of the individual.
People can be described by their degree of resemblance to six theoretical personality types : Realistic (conforming,
hard-headed, practical, inflexible, un-insightful), Investigative (independent, intellectual, precise, rational, reserved),
Artistic (emotional, imaginative, introspective, nonconforming, sensitive), Social (cooperative, friendly, helpful,
responsible, warm), Enterprising (agreeable, ambitious, energetic, extroverted, sociable), and Conventional
(conforming, conscientious, efficient, obedient, practical). Each type is characterized by distinctive preferences,
outlooks, competencies, and self perceptions. In practical application, information about a person’s preferences,
outlooks, competencies, and self estimates is used to assess the degree to which an individual resembles each of the
six personality types. The personality types are not always clear and pure as it can be a mix of types. At what level of
the same kind of work will turn the person is determined by intelligence, self-knowledge and professional
information they have.
Environmental attitudes are conceptualized in terms of attitude theory as being composed of beliefs and affect
toward an object. The environment as an object is difficult to define. The environment may be an attitude object
which has been forced on the respondent by journalists and researchers, but which may not make sense to
respondents who are likely to see the environment much more in terms of its component parts which they personally
experience. The factors that may influence someone’s environmental attitudes are: knowledge,
background, experience, perception, values and context. Attitudes are based on values, have
horizontal and vertical structure and tend from general to specific. Environmental concern appears to be a specific
belief which is largely embedded in cognitive structure and should be considered an opinion rather than en attitude.
While changes in this opinion have been documented, it is not clear that environmental attitudes or values have
shifted, although attitudes have most probably become more differentiated over the last decade.
The investigation of environmental attitudes and an understanding of the environmental behavior of a young
person is very important for environmental education, whose role is to shape positive for the environment. Linking
environmental and vocational type helps grouping of personalities. The psychometric tools available in the literature
in the form of census questionnaires used to assess job characteristics. One of the theories of career development,
Holland's theory, helps to investigate and predict the environmental attitudes of young people in relation to their
occupational preferences.

METHODOLOGY

The aim of this framework is to quantify both the distribution of public personality types and the quantitative
measurement of each type’s relationship with each sensitivity to environmental issues. We use Holland’s
methodology to develop a questionnaire with 42 questions, Likert-type which are grouped by seven to six groups
according to their vocational types John Holland. Each group includes questions of vocational interest and one or
two of environmental interest. We worked mainly with students samples, with men or women, between ages 15 to
24 which were interviewed face to face. Assessed the content validity through discussions with scientists
experienced panel of judges in such matters.
We chose the questionnaire to be completed by students of technical vocational high school, high school students, as
well as undergraduate and graduate students in the university, in their own schools. Respondents completed the
questionnaire themselves with the presence of their teacher, who had the responsibility to explain the meaning of
questions, in case requested clarifications. The student score on each Likert-type question (according to the five-
point scale from 1= strongly disagree to 5 = agree completely). At the end of each questionnaire the student mark the
six groups of questions according to their preferences in the thematic content of each one. This gives two scores on
occupational preferences, one of the analytical scoring of questions and another of the marking of groups of
questions that correspond to six business types in Holland.
The data of the completed questionnaires were recorded in excel and SPSS-Statistics. Was testing the reliability of
the questionnaire using the written recurrence and determined the correlation coefficients r Pearson rP,
Kendall rK and Spearman rS as follows:

rS , rP=

IMPLEMENTATION AND RESULTS

The survey was conducted from 20 May 2011 until 20 June 2011 with the distribution of questionnaires to high
school students, to technical high school students in Zografos, east suburb of Athens and undergraduate and
graduate students of University of Piraeus.
The study extends to the diversification of respondents according to age, sex and educational level. The students
sample consisted of the 47% women and 53% men and the 40% of them, were from technical vocational high
school , the 42% were high school students, 7% were undergraduate and 11% were graduate students in the
university. The 81% were between 14 and 18 years old, the 19% were between 18 and 24 years old. Of respondents
the 12,3% belongs to type A, the 17,5% belongs to type B, the 15,8% belongs to type C, the 25,7% belongs to type
D, the 10,5% belongs to type E and the 181% belongs to type F.

.
FIGURE 1: Students’ ages chart , where1=14 FIGURE 2: Environmental Question (SUM) of each
2=15,3=16, 4=17, 5=18, 6=22,7=24 years old. type
 The relationship of the type that ultimately owns the respondent is to sensitize his character to the environment.
The relationship of personality type of the intensity of environmental awareness is a tool used for categorization of
Holland applied at different levels of education. The most friendly type to environment is type D (Social), the second
is type C (Artistic), the third type is E (Enterprising), the fourth type is F (Conventional), the fifth type is B
(Investigative) and the sixth is type A (Realistic).
The correlation between personality types and awareness of respondents on environmental issues showed that
social type is the most sensitive to environmental issues. We associate the type of personality is everyone respondent
in accordance with the rating and the type of personality where he feels that he belongs. The results are as follows:
The internal consistency of the first choice is 43% and the internal consistency between the first and second choice is
81%.
We associate each type’s environmental question with each of the other questions. The results show middle to
high correlation between the average prices of scores of other questions on the rating of question that measures the
environmental sensitivity. The prices of R2 varies between 0,71 – 0,95.
We desire to ask whether there is a positive correlation between the factors most important to one species. We
make a top-down correlation analysis according to the ranking score of the respondents and the classification chosen
by the respondent. The weighted rank correlation rT for the technical vocational high school students, determined
between the prices: -0,053 and +0,707 with average price 0,355 and standard deviation 0,378. The weighted rank
correlation rT for undergraduate students determined between the prices: +0,159 and +0,771 with average price
0,482 and standard deviation 0,218. The conclusion is that for the upper prices there is significant agreement
between the two rankings for the six personality types of Holland.
We formed the hypothesis for the Pearson’s, the Kendall’s and the Spearman’s correlation coefficients. H o : if
r=0, then there is no correlation. H1 : if r >0 or r <0 , then there is correlation. The confidence level is a=5% . So if
our p-value(two-tailed) < 0,05 , then we reject H0 and we accept H1 . If r > 0, there is a positive correlation. If r < 0,
there is a negative correlation.
There was a significant relationship between initial score (type A) and the final score (type A) rPearson=0,382,
p(two-tailed)<0,05. There was a significant relationship between initial score (type A) and the final score (type A)
rKendall=0,292, p(two-tailed)<0,05. There was a significant relationship between initial score (type A) and the final
score (type A) rSpearman=0,382, p(two-tailed)<0,05. The results for the other types are shown in the table 1.

TABLE 1. Coefficients of Correlation

HOLLAND'S
rPearson rKendall rSpearman REMARKS
TYPE
A 0,382 0,292 0,382 p(two-tailed)<0,05
B 0,315 0,252 0,329 p(two-tailed)<0,05
C 0,411 0,324 0,429 p(two-tailed)<0,05
D 0,180 0,158 0,208 p(two-tailed)<0,05
E 0,219 0,154 0,204 p(two-tailed)<0,05
F 0,348 0,274 0,350 p(two-tailed)<0,05

As there is no linear relationship between variable “Initial Score” and “Final Score”, our assumptions are based
on Kendall and Spearman correlation coefficient.
We compute the weighted rank correlation 1. Therefore, there is perfect linear correlation between variable
“Initial Score” and “Final Score”.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUDING REMARKS

The theory of Holland’s vocational personalities confirmed and validated by many researchers. We assumed that
the student information on environmental issues arising both from the educational program has deficiencies in this
area and in the media and communication on the internet. Using the modified questionnaire of personality types of
Holland without direct reference to them, our research has helped to elicit an indirect way the views of students
about the environment. Then, we tried to draw conclusions from a comparison of personality types of Holland and
awareness of each type on the environment. Possible problems during the completion of questionnaires may be due
to reduced understanding of the questions that the different levels of education, lack of time, the influence of their
classmates.
 In Greek Primary and Secondary Education, although environmental education is proposed in the curriculum, it
still depends on the educators’ will to be applied. Bureaucratic problems, in addition with the uncertainty teachers
are feeling concerning their knowledge background on environmental issues, the lack of existence of a suitable
educational material – either for them or for the students – and the problem of the strict school timetable they have to
face, make most of them postpone the application of environmental education.
Social is the first type of personality that is sensitive to the environmental issues. The causal relationship that
forms the social type of personality in Holland, justifies and the awareness of environmental issues as the type is
characterized by feelings of friendship, cooperation and responsibility. He enjoys working with other people and
prefers the activities related to education, illuminating, development and treatment of other people. The
characteristics of this type of personality suggest sensitivity to the environment as a social type, cares for the public
benefit and tries with his behavior to maximize social welfare. The environment is a public good and its protection
relies on willingness of the citizens.
The second type of personality that is sensitive to the environmental issues is the artistic. This type develops
positive feelings about the environment, is creative and unconventional. It tends to foster free thinking in a creative
environment. For this type of personality clean environment is a source of inspiration and creativity.
According to changes in public education and the recent legislation, the trends resulting from the individual
studies will help the education system to direct to the strategy of environmental education.

ACKNOWLEGMENTS

Financial support provided by the Piraeus University Research Center [Post-graduate Degree Program (Master)
on Energy Saving and Environmental Protection] is kindly acknowledged.

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