Eze, Emmanuel

2 Publications in AERD

Author Publications

Fostering environmental personal norms: the role of environmental education in Nigerian pre-service teachers’ environmental knowledge, pro-environmental beliefs and behaviours

By Obiagu, Adaobiagu

This research investigated the role of environmental education (EE) in acquiring environmental knowledge, pro-environmental beliefs and pro-environmental behaviours among a sample of pre-service teachers who undertook an EE course (n = 177) and those who did not undertake an EE course (n = 203) in a Nigerian university. Results showed that pre-service teachers who received the EE course had higher environmental knowledge and pro-environmental behaviour than their counterparts who did not take the EE course. Moreover, pre-service teachers who did not take the EE course had higher pro-environmental beliefs than their counterparts who received the EE course. However, the recorded mean differences were minor and not statistically significant. Also, the relationships between environmental knowledge, pro-environmental beliefs and pro-environmental behaviours were not significant. The implications of these findings call for EE policies and practices anchored on promoting personal environmental norms and citizenship and updated capacity building for EE educators. © 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

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Nigerian teachers' self-reported climate science literacy and expressed training needs on climate change concepts: Prospects of job-embedded situative professional development

By Eze, Emmanuel

The assessment of Nigerian teachers' climate science literacy and training needs on climate change concepts (i.e., causes, impacts, and solutions) are absent. This study relates teachers' climate science literacy and their expressed training needs in other climate change concepts and places teachers in groups. Following a descriptive survey design, 410 teachers were randomly sampled from 8338 public secondary school teachers in Enugu State, southeastern Nigeria. A researcher-developed instrument passing validity and reliability tests was used for this study. We implemented frequencies, mean, t test, ANOVA, k-means cluster analyses, and Pearson's correlation for the analyses of collected data and tested all hypotheses at a p < 0.05 level of significance. Teachers reported low to moderate climate science literacy and expressed high training needs on climate change concepts. Lower climate science literacy was related to higher expressed training needs. Four groups of teachers ensued from our cluster analyses. Sadly, teachers who possess little or less climate science literacy and expressed less or no training needs in climate change causes, impacts, and solutions constitute over half of the respondents of this study (53.90%). These are mostly science teachers. This situation, if unreversed, may lead to the transfer of misconceptions and inaccurate information on climate change to students. Our findings support the prospects of school-university partnerships, coaching, mentoring, study groups, and co-teaching for job-embedded situative approaches to teachers' professional development (PD) to replace an endless wait for inadequate and irregular training opportunities from the government. Questions about the climate science literacy of teacher educators also arise.

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