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Matthias Winfried Kleespies
Bioscience Education and Zoo Biology, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

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Research article
Published: 04 June 2021 in Environmental Education Research
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In the past decades, zoos have increasingly developed into conservation and education centers and today make an important contribution to environmental education. In this context, this study investigated which factors influence attitudes towards species conservation. The variables examined were gender, age, the number of visits to zoos in the last 12 months, perception of zoos, interest in animals and the country where the survey was conducted. A total of 3347 participants in seven different countries were surveyed. In the hierarchical multiple regression, it was found that all the variables examined were significant influencing factors with exception of gender. A mediator analysis provided evidence that the number of visits to zoos, in addition to the direct effect on attitudes towards species conservation, also has a relevant indirect effect with interest in animals as mediators. Significant differences in attitudes towards species conservation were found between some of the countries studied, but only with a small effect sizes. Graphical Abstract

ACS Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies; Natalia Álvarez Montes; Alina Miriam Bambach; Eva Gricar; Volker Wenzel; Paul Wilhelm Dierkes. Identifying factors influencing attitudes towards species conservation – a transnational study in the context of zoos. Environmental Education Research 2021, 1 -19.

AMA Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies, Natalia Álvarez Montes, Alina Miriam Bambach, Eva Gricar, Volker Wenzel, Paul Wilhelm Dierkes. Identifying factors influencing attitudes towards species conservation – a transnational study in the context of zoos. Environmental Education Research. 2021; ():1-19.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies; Natalia Álvarez Montes; Alina Miriam Bambach; Eva Gricar; Volker Wenzel; Paul Wilhelm Dierkes. 2021. "Identifying factors influencing attitudes towards species conservation – a transnational study in the context of zoos." Environmental Education Research , no. : 1-19.

Journal article
Published: 06 February 2021 in Sustainability
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The human-nature connection is an important factor that is frequently the subject of environmental education research and environmental psychology. Therefore, over the years, numerous measuring instruments have been established to quantitatively record a person’s connection to nature. However, there is no instrument specifically for children with cognitive limitations. For this reason, in this study, an established scale for connection to nature, the inclusion of nature in self scale (INS), was modified especially for the needs of this group. Study 1 investigated what students understand by the term “nature” in order to create an illustrated version of the INS. In study 2, the new instrument was tested on university students and compared with the original INS and the connectedness to nature scale (CNS). No significant differences between the original INS and the new developed scale were found (p = 0.247), from which it can be concluded that the illustrated INS (IINS) measures the connection to nature with similar accuracy as the original INS. In study 3, the instrument was tested together with other established nature connection instruments on the actual target group, students with disabilities. The correlation between the IINS, the CNS, and nature connectedness scale (NR) were in accordance with the expected literature values (rIINS-CNS = 0.570 & rIINS-NR = 0.605). The results of this study also prove effectiveness of the developed illustrated scale. This research thus provides a suitable measuring instrument for people with learning difficulties and can make a contribution to the investigation of human-nature connections and conservation education.

ACS Style

Matthias Kleespies; Tina Braun; Paul Dierkes; Volker Wenzel. Measuring Connection to Nature—A Illustrated Extension of the Inclusion of Nature in Self Scale. Sustainability 2021, 13, 1761 .

AMA Style

Matthias Kleespies, Tina Braun, Paul Dierkes, Volker Wenzel. Measuring Connection to Nature—A Illustrated Extension of the Inclusion of Nature in Self Scale. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (4):1761.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Matthias Kleespies; Tina Braun; Paul Dierkes; Volker Wenzel. 2021. "Measuring Connection to Nature—A Illustrated Extension of the Inclusion of Nature in Self Scale." Sustainability 13, no. 4: 1761.

Sociology
Published: 05 November 2020 in PLOS ONE
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The new concept of relational values (RVs) is gaining more and more attention in environmental research, but empirical analyses are still rare. However, this type of research is necessary because the RVs have an influence on environmental behavior. To evaluate the impact of biological education on attributing higher importance to RVs and connectedness to nature, we compared the connection to nature scores (using the inclusion of nature scale (INS) and connectedness to nature scale (CNS)) and RV scores of biologically interested high school students (n = 417) with first year (n = 593) and advanced biology (n = 223) students. While high school students showed significant lower connection to nature scores than university students, there was no significant difference in RVs between the test groups. These results suggest that there is a lack of factors in the university study of biology that can change RVs. The gender comparison of RVs and connection to nature showed a significant higher RV score for females while INS and CNS did not show a gender difference. Thus, the study makes an important contribution to the research, as it was able to prove that gender has an influence on a person's RVs but not on their connection to nature.

ACS Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies; Paul Wilhelm Dierkes. Impact of biological education and gender on students’ connection to nature and relational values. PLOS ONE 2020, 15, e0242004 .

AMA Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies, Paul Wilhelm Dierkes. Impact of biological education and gender on students’ connection to nature and relational values. PLOS ONE. 2020; 15 (11):e0242004.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies; Paul Wilhelm Dierkes. 2020. "Impact of biological education and gender on students’ connection to nature and relational values." PLOS ONE 15, no. 11: e0242004.

Original research article
Published: 04 August 2020 in Frontiers in Psychology
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Zoos attract millions of visitors every year, many of whom are schoolchildren. For this reason, zoos are important institutions for the environmental education of future generations. Empirical studies on the educational impact of environmental education programs in zoos are still rare. To address this issue, we conducted two studies: In study 1, we investigated students’ interests in different biological topics, including zoos (n = 1,587). Data analysis of individual topics revealed large differences of interest, with advanced students showing less interest in zoos. In study 2, we invited school classes of this age group to visit different guided tours at the zoo and tested connection to nature before and after each educational intervention (n = 608). The results showed that the guided tours are an effective tool to raise students’ connection to nature. Add-on components have the potential to further promote connection to nature. The education programs are most effective with students with a low initial nature connection.

ACS Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies; Jennifer Gübert; Alexander Popp; Nicola Hartmann; Christian Dietz; Tanja Spengler; Martin Becker; Paul Wilhelm Dierkes. Connecting High School Students With Nature – How Different Guided Tours in the Zoo Influence the Success of Extracurricular Educational Programs. Frontiers in Psychology 2020, 11, 1804 .

AMA Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies, Jennifer Gübert, Alexander Popp, Nicola Hartmann, Christian Dietz, Tanja Spengler, Martin Becker, Paul Wilhelm Dierkes. Connecting High School Students With Nature – How Different Guided Tours in the Zoo Influence the Success of Extracurricular Educational Programs. Frontiers in Psychology. 2020; 11 ():1804.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies; Jennifer Gübert; Alexander Popp; Nicola Hartmann; Christian Dietz; Tanja Spengler; Martin Becker; Paul Wilhelm Dierkes. 2020. "Connecting High School Students With Nature – How Different Guided Tours in the Zoo Influence the Success of Extracurricular Educational Programs." Frontiers in Psychology 11, no. : 1804.

Journal article
Published: 22 May 2020 in Sustainability
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The UN's sustainable development goals (SDGs), which aim to solve important economic, social, and environmental problems of humanity, are to be supported by education for sustainable development (ESD). Empirical studies on the success of the implementation of the SDGs in the field of education are still pending. For this reason, using the loss of global biodiversity as an example, this study examined the extent to which high school students, teacher trainees in biology, and biology bachelor students can identify the causes of the global biodiversity loss. A new questioning tool was developed and tested on 889 participants. In addition, the relationship between connection to nature and the personal assessment about biodiversity threats was examined. The factor analysis of the scale used showed that 11 out of 16 items were assigned to the intended factor. The comparison between high school students, teacher trainees in biology, and biology bachelor students showed no significant difference in overall assessment of the reasons for global biodiversity loss. When comparing the three risk levels in which the risk factors for biodiversity could be divided, across the three student groups, only minor differences were found. Therefore, a specific education of prospective teachers is necessary, as they have to pass on the competence as multipliers to their students. No significant difference could be found when examining the relationship between connection to nature and the overall scores of the assessment scale for the reasons of biodiversity loss. However, it was found that people who felt more connected to nature were more capable of assessing the main causes of risk for global biodiversity, while people who felt less connected to nature achieved better scores for the medium factors.

ACS Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies; Paul Wilhelm Dierkes. Personal Assessment of Reasons for the Loss of Global Biodiversity—an Empirical Analysis. Sustainability 2020, 12, 4277 .

AMA Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies, Paul Wilhelm Dierkes. Personal Assessment of Reasons for the Loss of Global Biodiversity—an Empirical Analysis. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (10):4277.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies; Paul Wilhelm Dierkes. 2020. "Personal Assessment of Reasons for the Loss of Global Biodiversity—an Empirical Analysis." Sustainability 12, no. 10: 4277.

Original research article
Published: 13 March 2020 in Frontiers in Psychology
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In recent environmental research, relational values (RVs) have emerged as a new group of values to explain environmental behavior. Although this new concept is attracting attention, empirical studies on the subject are still rare. On this basis, we have conducted three studies to analyze an existing measurement tool for RVs and compared the construct with the concept of connection to nature. In study 1, we confirmed convergent and discriminant validity of the RV scale by comparing it with the Two Factor Model of Environmental Values (2-MEV) model using a sample of n = 350 university students. Additionally, study 1 verified reliability using test–retest reliability on three different groups of students (n1 = 53; n2 = 37; n3 = 48). In study 2, principal component analyses were performed to examine the structure of RVs and to compare it to the concept of connection to nature by reusing the sample 350 university students from study 1. The results show that RVs and connection to nature are not fundamentally distinct constructs, but overlap. However, if the structure of the RV measurement is forced to a single factor, no perfect fit is found, making a multidimensional solution more likely. A third study was conducted to review the results from study 2 using confirmatory factor analysis on a new sample of 878 university and high school students. Study 3 confirmed RVs as a multidimensional construct with three factors: care, community, and connection. It also proved the overlap of the connection to nature and RV concepts to some extent.

ACS Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies; Paul Dierkes. Exploring the Construct of Relational Values: An Empirical Approach. Frontiers in Psychology 2020, 11, 1 .

AMA Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies, Paul Dierkes. Exploring the Construct of Relational Values: An Empirical Approach. Frontiers in Psychology. 2020; 11 ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Matthias Winfried Kleespies; Paul Dierkes. 2020. "Exploring the Construct of Relational Values: An Empirical Approach." Frontiers in Psychology 11, no. : 1.