Nordic Student Teachers’ Views on the Most Efficient Teaching and Learning Methods for Species and Species Identification

Abstract

Teachers need knowledge of species and species identification skills for teaching the structure and function of ecosystems, and the principles of biodiversity and its role in sustainability. The aim of this study is to analyze Nordic student teachers’ views on the most efficient methods and strategies to teach and learn species and species identification, and to find some trends about how well their views are reflected in a species identification test. Student teachers in Finland, Norway, and Sweden (N = 426) answered a questionnaire consisting of fixed and open-ended questions, and a species identification test. An analysis of variance, Chi-Square, and t-test were used for quantitative data and an inductive content analysis for qualitative data. Results showed that outdoor teaching and learning methods are more efficient than indoor methods. The majority of student teachers considered outdoor experiential learning with living organisms as the most efficient teaching and learning method. Student teachers who highlighted outdoor experiential learning and outdoor project work as their most efficient methods received significantly better results in the species identification test than the others. Field trips and fieldwork were emphasized as the most important sources in schools and universities, while the Internet was the most important source among media. The student teachers underlined teachers’ expertise in the form of in-depth understanding of subjects and supervising skills for efficient teaching both outdoors and indoors. Therefore, teaching and learning of species and species identification as the practical part of biodiversity and sustainability education is emphasized as an integral part of teacher education programs.

Vertebrate species knowledge: an important skill is threatened by extinction

“…Favourite playing area: Species knowledge is positively influenced by animal-related activities such as keeping a pet (Prokop & Tunnicliffe, 2010;Randler, 2010). In addition, direct observations of species are an effective strategy to foster pupils' identification skills (Gerl et al, 2018;Hooykaas et al, 2019;Palmberg et al, 2018;Palmberg et al, 2019;Randler et al, 2015;Remmele & Lindemann-Matthies, 2018). Children who prefer to play in nature have a higher chance to encounter animals and should outperform those with less possibilities to observe species.…”

“…They are present in the sustainable development goals of the United Nations (Rieckmann et al, 2017), as well as in compulsory curricula of schools (e.g. Palmberg et al, 2019;Staatsinstitut für Schulqualität und Bildungsforschung, 2017). Teaching biodiversity at school is not only an obligatory necessity but offers many possibilities for hands-on activities (Fančovičová & Prokop, 2017) or outdoor experiences (Lindemann-Matthies, 2006) to motivate pupils and enrich biology lessons.…”

Teaching and Learning Methods in Geography Promoting Sustainability

“…Outdoor learning is based on holistic, experiential learning, and the integration of knowledge and skills across disciplines [46]. So, learning outdoors can be used for all subjects as well as SE [47,48] for supporting personal and social development, even on a primary school level [49,50]. Moreover, learning outdoors can foster individuals' physical well-being, social and emotional well-being, and deeper levels of learning [51].…”

Nature Interest Scale – Development and Evaluation of a Measurement Instrument for Individual Interest in Nature

“…The search keywords used were "interest in nature." Although we found some publications that tried to empirically measure interest in nature (e.g., Sjöblom and Wolff, 2017;Palmberg et al, 2019;Ahnesjö and Danielsson, 2020), no validated instrument covering the three dimensions of the psychological construct of interest was found. In most cases, these were single item measurement instruments.…”

“…To examine whether a validated and established measurement tool for interest in nature already exists in the literature, we searched the scientific database Education Resources Information Center (ERIC). The search keywords used were “interest in nature.” Although we found some publications that tried to empirically measure interest in nature (e.g., Sjöblom and Wolff, 2017 ; Palmberg et al, 2019 ; Ahnesjö and Danielsson, 2020 ), no validated instrument covering the three dimensions of the psychological construct of interest was found. In most cases, these were single item measurement instruments.…”