Despite being systematically endorsed as an instrument capable of generating sustainable actions, conventional education is not adapted to efficiently promote sustainable behaviors. Academics and organizations strongly believe that education can guide society towards environmental sustainability (Rowe, 2007; Potter, 2009; Goritz, et al., 2019; UNESCO,1997). For instance, the UNESCO claimed that “education is the most effective means that society possesses for confronting the challenges of the future” (UNESCO, 1997). Moreover, several authors urged educational institutions to put more emphasis on teaching sustainable development as a subject (Rowe, 2007; Mochizuki and Bryan, 2015). However previous educational programs promoting eco-friendly actions are found inadequate (Redman and Larson, 2011; Ramsey, 1993; Redman, 2013). Educational interventions have been unsuccessful at promoting individual and collective actions advancing sustainability because they rely on the assumption that new knowledge leads to new behavior (McKenzie‐Mohr 2000; Redman and Larson 2011; Ramsey, 1993; Simmons and Volk, 2002). The term ‘knowledge’ is defined here as the “facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education” and its acquisition has been the main goal of education (Arlinghaus and Johnston, 2017).
Informational, knowledge-based approaches to eco-friendly behavior change tend to produce mediocre results (Finger, 1994; Stern, 2000; McKenzie‐Mohr, 2000). The focus on teaching information as the means for changing people’ attitudes, beliefs and behaviors has been termed the Information-Deficit Model (e.g., students just need to understand how the environment works and then they will behave in a sustainable manner) (Suldovsky, 2017). This method has been found inadequate in addressing the motivators and obstacles to changing pro-environmental behaviors (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002; Monroe, 2003; Pooley and O’Connor, 2000). For example, even though someone may know a lot of information regarding sustainable food behaviors and sustainable waste behaviors, this knowledge is not a reliable determinant of whether they will actually participate in such behaviors (Redman and Redman, 2014). The lack of efficacy in sustainability education can thus be attributed to the incorrect assumption that knowledge leads to action (McKenzie‐Mohr, 2000; Ramsey, 1993; Simmons and Volk, 2002). Most educational interventions rely on the transfer of knowledge because it is assumed to be a precondition to changing someone’s behavior (Frick et al, 2004). Therefore, the environmental education movement as a whole is maladapted to create sustainable actions since it still believes that explaining to someone why they should do an action differently is equivalent to teaching them new behaviors (Heimlich and Ardoin 2008; Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002)
Despite informational knowledge being insufficient at creating sustainable behaviors, it is still an necessary element of behavior change because it helps an individual understand why a certain action needs to be changed (Arlinghaus and Johnston, 2017). For example, even though the Information-deficit model has been heavily criticized for not understanding the relationship between knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, it is still considered essential for climate change research and communication (Suldovsky, 2017). If information was enough to alter the way humans conduct themselves; why would anyone still eat unhealthy foods, smoke cigarettes, and not exercise regularly while the information about the benefits and dangers of those behaviors is universally accessible? (Arlinghaus and Johnston, 2017). While information by itself is insufficient in helping chronic cigarettes smokers quit permanently, one should start by learning the facts and information explaining why cigarettes are harmful in order to quit them anyway. So, even though the purpose of education as a whole is to prepare people manage upcoming challenges (Roczen et al., 2013), relying only on informational knowledge to create behavior change generates unsatisfactory outcomes (McKenzie‐Mohr, 2000; Stern 2000,b). As it happens, very few environmental programs actually measure and understand the link between acquiring new knowledge and how it affects behaviors (Redman, 2013).
The measurement of different domains of knowledge held by someone can be used to predict and fill knowledge gaps to foster sustainable behaviors. Different domains of knowledge have been identified, each performing different functions in explaining and prompting behavior change (Kaiser and Fuhrer, 2003; Roczen et al., 2013; Redman and Larson, 2011). For example, a framework including 4 domains of knowledge (e.g. declarative, procedural, effectiveness and social knowledge) (Kaiser and Fuhrer, 2003) was used in a study to predict how likely students were to conform with sustainable food and sustainable waste behaviors ( Redman and Redman, 2014). Declarative knowledge is one type of knowledge, and it can be defined as factual, technical socio-ecological information (Redman and Redman, 2014). Researchers ( Redman and Larson, 2011) described the 4 different forms of knowledge using food choices as an example. (1) life cycle analysis, or the human-ecosystem processes by which products are produced, consumed, and decomposed (declarative knowledge); (2) how to read labels and understand the meaning of different certifications, such as organic and fair trade (procedural knowledge); (3) the broader impacts of switching to a more sustainable diet, for instance, how fair trade affects the livelihoods of farmers or how organic farming minimizes pollution while maintaining soil fertility (effectiveness); and, (4) the social desirability of individual decisions and underlying reasons for cultural norms, such as high-meat diets in the U.S. (social knowledge). Using those domains to predict sustainable behaviors, a study found that procedural and social knowledge were robust predictors of sustainable food behaviors; while procedural, effectiveness, and social knowledge domains were able to predict sustainable waste behaviors accurately ( Redman and Redman, 2014).
This approach of merging knowledge domains together involves concepts such as: values, social norms, attitudes, and beliefs (Ajzen, 1985; Cialdini et al., 1990; Stern, 2000), which were developed by behavioral scholars trying to understand what motivates and prevents behavior. Therefore, an educational program that comprise all domains of knowledge about a compon environmental goal, will be able to understand can foster environmental behaviors more meaningfully that any single form of knowledge alone (Kaiser and Fuhrer 2003; Redman and Redman 2014; Roczen et al., 2013). Educational interventions must therefore create programs that do more than simply transmit information in order to target and impact the predictors of sustainable behaviors ( Redman and Redman, 2014).
Sustainable educators must implement behavioral theories into their practice to promote transformational actions efficiently. For instance, numerous academics argue that, to improve the inefficient information-based model, it is critical to incorporate several categories of knowledge based on behavioral theories into sustainability education( Redman and Larson 2011; Redman and Redman, 2014) and environmental education (Roczen et al. 2013; Heimlich and Ardoin 2008). For example, a model of behavior change called “ theory of change” was used to improve transdisciplinary sustainable education in the classroom (Armitage et al., 2019). Our current educational approach prevent sustainable education to create transformative actions because it commonly disregards both the subjective paths to acquiring knowledge, as well as disregarding the potential withheld inside the collected works of behavior change science (Redman and Redman 2014; Redman and Larson 2011). Subsequently, sustainability educators advocate to not just teach knowledge, but shift from a ‘transmissive’ to a ‘transformative’ type of teaching so that future generations can be armed with the proper tools to fight against the dangers of climate change (Burns, 2011).
Instead of focusing on purely informational learning, a transformative learning approach must try to change a person’ attitudes, so that learners can embrace sustainability as a new standard (Taimur et al., 2020). Environmental attitudes are determined by the beliefs and emotions one holds towards an certain environmental occurrence (Pooley and O’Connor, 2000), and several studies revealed that they are much stronger and more reliable predictors of sustainable behaviors than environmental knowledge (Indriani et al., 2019; Roczen et al., 2013; Laner, 2018). For instance, the approach of merging different realms of knowledge previously mentioned extents past the traditional views of knowledge (Kaiser and Fuhrer, 2003) to include the subjective and dynamic processing of our environment as a form of knowledge ( Redman and Larson, 2011). Attitudes towards nature and ecological actions are frequently studied within the context of education aimed to induce pro-environmental actions because they may be essential in predicting and modifying various eco-friendly behaviors (Kaiser et al., 1999). Which explains why many theories of behavior change within the field of environmental education are targeting ‘attitudes’ to try to change them as a way to change ultimately change behaviors ( e.g. Theory of planned behavior; Integrated model of behavioral prediction; Responsible environmental behavior model) (Heimlich and Ardoin, 2008). That is the case because, in order to teach environmental behaviors, educators must teach about both the cognitive (i.e. rational thinking based on factual knowledge) and the affective (i.e. belief, emotions, attitudes) processes accompanying the particular behavioral skill being taught (Heimlich and Ardoin, 2008).
There is a link between environmental knowledge and attitudes towards environmental behaviors. For example, it was found that while environmental knowledge does not directly influence green product purchase intention (Indriani et al, 2019) it has a moderate effect on environmental attitudes (Arcury, 1990), which in turn consistently and positively influences the intention to buy eco-friendly products (Indriani et al., 2019). Environmental knowledge positively influence environmental attitudes (Bradley et al., 1999) and those two factors are regularly being taken into account in the context of environmental education (Heimlich and Ardoin, 2008).
People with strong eco-friendly attitudes are found more likely to adopt eco-friendly behaviors, despite ‘attitudes’ being a fragile predictor of actual eco-friendly behaviors (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002). For example, a study found that college students’ attitudes were the strongest predictor of the intent they had to act environmentally, which in turn had a softer but still positive influence on the actual environmentally friendly behaviors (Laner, 2018). This is because attitudes are strong predictors of the intention one has to do a certain action, but intentions are in turn, only moderately successful predictors of real behavior (Ajzen, 1991). Recurrent findings reveal important inconsistencies between environmental knowledge, attitudes and their matching behaviors (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002; Padel and Foster, 2005; Yamoah and Acquaye, 2019).
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Past environmental programs have failed because there is a gap between an individual’s thinking and their actions (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002; Padel and Foster, 2005). For example, in consumption behaviors there can be an inconsistency between the values, beliefs and attitudes someone holds towards buying certain ethical products, and the products the same person actualy buys (Carrington et al., 2014). More specifically, there is a persistent attitude behavior gap paradox within the sustainable food industry that is still largely unexplored by researchers (Yamoah and Acquaye, 2019). For example, while many consumers show a positive attitude towards purchases of organic food products (67%), only a small number of consumers (4%) purchased those products (Joshi and Rahman, 2015). As Dr. Harold Hungerford, a renown environmental educator, stated: “Environmental educators still believe—so very strongly—in the knowledge; attitude; behavior model of learning when, at the same time, we know how desperately inadequate this is when it comes to changing the citizenship behaviors of large numbers of learners over long periods of time” (Simmons & Volk, 2002). Although numerous studies and theoretical frameworks were designed and used to explain the gap between environmental knowledge, consciousness, and behaviors, no conclusive explanations was established yet (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002). For instance, not a single research investigation was able to fully comprehend why a consumer holding positive attitudes towards environmental products fails to turn into an actual eco-friendly purchase (Gupta and Ogden, 2009).
Although no clear consensus has been reached regarding to what extent, or by which method attitudes can influence environmental behaviors (Heimlich and Ardoin, 2008), some scholars argued that they can be used as effective predictors of environmental actions if measured properly (Kaiser et al, 1999). The environmental attitude-behavior gap declines when the attitude measured is especially specific to the condition surrounding the ecological behavior (Weigel et al., 1974). Studies reliably show that general eco-friendly attitudes by themselves seldom create specific behavioral conversions (Monroe, 2003; Bell et al. 1996; Heimlich and Ardoin, 2008), however it was uncovered that in field experiments that specific attitudes more reliably predict actual gasoline purchasing behaviors than general attitudes (Heberlein and Black, 1976). Attitudes towards specific behaviors (e.g. buying an electric vehicle) are better predictors than attitudes held towards the object of the behavior (e.g. the environment ) (Jaccard et al., 1977). General attitudes towards the environment do not necessarily predict if a person will act out a specific behavior (e.g. buying an electric vehicle), on the other hand specific attitudes towards specific problems ( e.g. attitude towards cars emissions polluting the atmosphere) will improve the prediction of the specific behavior (i.e. actual purchase of an electric vehicle) (Heimlich and Ardoin, 2008; Bell et al. 1996). In other words, the questions measuring ‘attitudes’ must be designed specifically towards a precise behavior to reliably predict the probability of its occurrence (Heimlich and Ardoin, 2008). One piece attitude-behavior paradox puzzle can be explained by the fact that attitudes must be measured while highly specific to the behavioral context. Furthermore, other factors such as normative influences and accessibility were found to have an effect on the attitude behavior gap (Bell et al. 1996; Heimlich and Ardoin, 2008).
Attitudes and behaviors are dependent on specific context.
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