Journal Article Critique: How to teach recycling at an advanced phase of diffusion

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Meneses, G. 2006. How to teach recycling at an advanced phase of diffusion. Journal of Environmental Education. 37(4). 19-32.

 Why I selected this article

            I selected this article because it promised to discuss the practice of an outdoor education related topic. I find articles interesting when they suggest how to do something better- or perhaps more often what Not to do. From reading the abstract, I got the impression that this was a fairly well conducted research study, and that the results might be fairly generalized to wider populations. I also chose this article for it’s implications for our program. Since our program has a strong component or environmental education I was interested to see how my experiences in our program compared to the experience in this article.

Summary of the authors argument/purpose

The main argument of this article is that recycling behavior may not be a highly involved behavior as many environmental educators assume. Instead, it is becoming more of an automatic behavior, and as such, existing teaching strategies should be modified to reflect how best to influence recycling behavior in this new situation. Additionally, the author proposes that different psychological characteristics of individuals moderate recycling behavior, and thus recycling education should also be tailored to meet the individual psychological profile of the student. Personality characteristics and values that should be considered are listed as: authoritarianism, self-efficacy, frugality, locus of control, responsibility, alienation, self-awareness, collectivism, and materialism.

Critique of the strength of the argument

            The author presents a meticulously researched and referenced argument to support his conclusions. It is clear that the author has done an exhaustive search of the relevant literature and understands the current state of research into recycling education. Different aspects of various theories and studies are synthesized into a set of clever hypotheses about the nature of recycling as discussed above.

            The article I read last week by Priest and Gass was a paradigm for clarity of writing, remaining informative without becoming overly technical. Unfortunately the article this week does not live up to the same high standards. I find that this article suffers from an overuse of technical jargon, inadequately explained references to theories, and general wordiness. I believe there may also be a language barrier present that sometimes occurs with persons not writing in their native language. This article tries to say too much in too small of a space. In condensing this research to fit into a journal, I believe the author used too many technical terms. This may have been confounded by the probability that the native language of the author is probably Spanish. I find that scientific or technical writing by non-native speakers can be more difficult to follow because of correct, yet awkward, choice of overly-technical words and grammatical constructs. The large number of other works cited in this article provides strength to the argument, but is also a weakness. Anyone reading this article who does not have experience with environmental education AND psychology is likely to get lost somewhere in the lists of different concepts and theories. The author generally attempts explanation, but again it seems like there was just not enough space to provide examples and other clarification.

            While the study was very well conducted, I have reservations about generalizing the results to other populations because of the location of the study. Since the study was conducted on a Spanish speaking island, I wonder if the results should really even be generalized back to mainland Spain, much less other countries. It would certainly be interesting, if not necessary, to recreate this study in other mainland locations.

            My final reservation with this article is the overall research design. It is admirable to try and detect what, of many, factors will influence recycling behavior. However, it seems that it is not very useful to determine that there are six different personality types of recycle-ers, and that each type may need a separate educational strategy. It seems unlikely that anyone could really improve their recycling program based on the conclusions from this study, despite the useful sounding nature of the title and abstract.

Discussion of the applications to outdoor programming or research

            As mentioned in the last paragraph, this article promises much, but delivers little. Like many articles, more questions are raised than are answered. Nonetheless, it is an interesting line of questioning to pursue- especially considering that many other environmental education topics could operate via similar processes. Future research into this area could provide guidance to outdoor educators seeking to increase recycling behavior among groups. This could even provide benefits for recreational settings if it was found that something as simple as putting up more prominent recycling signs at park entrances could increase recycling behavior among visitors. Future research should certainly be conducted into this area, perhaps leading eventually to more simple and useful conclusions.