Evaluation Of The Environmental Education Programme At The Forest Research Institute Malaysia

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the differences in environmental knowledge and attitude of 11 year old pupils who participated in a one-day environmental education (EE) programme conducted at Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM), Kepong and the differences among three races – Malay, Chinese and Indian. Referring to a standard instrument called Children’s Environmental Attitude and Knowledge Scale (CHEAKS), attitude and knowledge were the major scales measured to evaluate the EE programme. ‘Verbal commitment’, ‘actual commitment’ and ‘affect’ are the multiple-measure constructs for attitude that was measured in the programme. The study found that there was an increase in environmental knowledge and attitude but it did not last more than two weeks. Meanwhile, there were no consistent significant differences in respondents’ environmental knowledge and attitude score between races. Overall, a one-day programme was found not to be effective in retaining pupils’ environmental knowledge gained during the EE programme. From this study, it is recommended that EE programmes should be conducted in a longer duration and should include emotionally provocative elements.