Nocturnal Primate Research Group, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, OX3 0BP, U.K.
Instituto de Neuroetología, Universidad Veracruzana, Avenida Dr. Luis Castelazo s/n, Colonia Industrial Animas C.P. 91000 Xalapa, Mexico.
Conserv Biol. 2018 Apr;32(2):466-476. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13023. Epub 2017 Oct 23.
Conservation professionals recognize the need to evaluate education initiatives with a flexible approach that is culturally appropriate. Cultural-consensus theory (CCT) provides a framework for measuring the extent to which beliefs are communally held and has long been applied by social scientists. In a conservation-education context, we applied CCT and used free lists (i.e., a list of items on a topic stated in order of cultural importance) and domain analysis (analysis of how free lists go together within a cultural group) to evaluate a conservation education program in which we used a children's picture book to increase knowledge about and empathy for a critically endangered mammal, the Javan slow loris (Nycticebus javanicus). We extracted free lists of keywords generated by students (n = 580 in 18 schools) from essays they wrote before and after the education program. In 2 classroom sessions conducted approximately 18 weeks apart, we asked students to write an essay about their knowledge of the target species and then presented a book and several activities about slow loris ecology. Prior to the second session, we asked students to write a second essay. We generated free lists from both essays, quantified salience of terms used, and conducted minimal residuals factor analysis to determine presence of cultural domains surrounding slow lorises in each session. Students increased their use of words accurately associated with slow loris ecology and conservation from 43% in initial essays to 76% in final essays. Domain coherence increased from 22% to 47% across schools. Fifteen factors contributed to the domain slow loris. Between the first and second essays, factors that showed the greatest change were feeding ecology and slow loris as a forest protector, which increased 7-fold, and the humancentric factor, which decreased 5-fold. As demonstrated by knowledge retention and creation of unique stories and conservation opinions, children achieved all six levels of Bloom's taxonomy of learning domains. Free from the constraints of questionnaires and surveys, CCT methods provide a promising avenue to evaluate conservation education programs.
保护专业人员认识到需要采用灵活且文化适宜的方法来评估教育计划。文化共识理论（CCT）为衡量信念在多大程度上被共同持有提供了一个框架，长期以来一直被社会科学家应用。在保护教育背景下，我们应用了 CCT，并使用自由列表（即按文化重要性顺序陈述的主题项目列表）和领域分析（分析自由列表在文化群体内部如何组合在一起）来评估一个保护教育计划，我们使用儿童图画书来增加对一种极度濒危哺乳动物爪哇懒猴（Nycticebus javanicus）的知识和同理心。我们从学生在教育计划前后撰写的文章中提取了学生生成的关键字自由列表（18 所学校的 580 名学生）。在大约相隔 18 周的 2 个课堂会议中，我们要求学生写一篇关于他们对目标物种的了解的文章，然后介绍一本关于懒猴生态学的书和几个活动。在第二次会议之前，我们要求学生写第二篇文章。我们从两篇文章中生成了自由列表，量化了所使用术语的显著性，并进行了最小剩余因素分析，以确定在每次会议中围绕懒猴的文化领域是否存在。学生在初始文章中准确使用与懒猴生态学和保护相关的词汇的比例从 43%增加到最终文章的 76%。各学校之间的领域连贯性从 22%增加到 47%。15 个因素促成了“懒猴”领域。在第一篇文章和第二篇文章之间，变化最大的是喂养生态学和作为森林保护者的懒猴，增加了 7 倍，以及以人类为中心的因素，减少了 5 倍。正如知识保留和独特故事以及保护意见的创作所表明的那样，儿童在学习领域的六个层次上都达到了布卢姆的认知目标分类法。CCT 方法不受问卷和调查的限制，为评估保护教育计划提供了一个有希望的途径。
