Volume 10, Number 2
Abstracts: Volume 9, Number 1
2004
RESEARCH
The Effects of Environment-Based Education on Students’ Achievement Motivation

Julie Athman
Environmental Education Specialist
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Julie_Athman@fws.gov

Martha C. Monroe
Associate Professor
School of Forest Resources and Conservation
University of Florida

Abstract
This mixed-methodology study examined the relationship between environment-based education and high school students’ achievement motivation. Four hundred 9th- and 12th-grade students from 11 Florida high schools participated in the study. A Pretest-Posttest Nonequivalent Comparison Group Design (9th grade) and a Posttest Only Nonequivalent Comparison Group Design (12th grade) were used in the study. Interviews of students and teachers were used to support and explain the quantitative data. Data collection took place over the 2001–2002 school year. When controlling for pretest score, GPA, gender, and ethnicity, environment-based programs had a positive effect on 9th grade students’ achievement motivation. When controlling for GPA, gender, and ethnicity, environment-based programs had a positive effect on 12th-grade students’ achievement motivation. The results of this study support the use of environment-based education for improving achievement motivation and can be used to guide future program implementation. Implications for formal educators, environmental educators, and interpreters are discussed.


Motivations of Volunteer Interpreters in Taiwan
A Survey of Natural Trails Society Volunteers

Yi-Fan Tung
The Pennsylvania State University

Harry C. Zinn
The Pennsylvania State University
Recreation & Park Management Program
201 Mateer Building
University Park, PA
hzinn@psu.edu

Abstract
We surveyed volunteer interpreters in the Natural Trails Society of Taiwan, an environmental education organization. Seventy-four of the 104 interpreters returned questionnaires, resulting in a response rate of 71%. We compared the importance of different motivations, tested for relationships between motivations and volunteer characteristics, and evaluated motivation items developed specifically for environmental education volunteers. On average, volunteers attached most importance to enjoying nature, followed by learning, doing something to benefit nature and society, religious-spiritual reasons, social contact, achievement, teaching-leading-sharing, filling an empty nest, and fulfilling social obligations. Volunteers with lower household incomes attached more importance than others to enjoying nature. Achievement was more important to those without a college degree than to those with college degrees. Teaching-leading-sharing was most important to those who were younger, single, and without children at home. Filling an empty nest was most important to those without a college degree. Fulfilling social obligations was more important to males than females. Both learning and teaching-leading-sharing were more important to those who had been volunteering for two years or less than to those who had been volunteering longer. The patterns of motivations we found suggest strategies managers can use to recruit and retain volunteers. Additional research will be needed to explain why motivations differ between subgroups, compare motivations across organizations and cultures, and further develop and refine motivation scales for environmental education volunteers.
IN SHORT

Book Review: Interpretive Planning
Brochu, Lisa. (2003).
The 5-M Model for
Successful Planning Projects. Fort Collins, CO: InterpPress.

Reviewed by Marcella Wells
Consultant, Wells Resources, Inc.
Fort Collins, Colorado
marcellawells@comcast.net

Introduction
Lisa Brochu has written the book that I had hoped to write one day. The book (153 pages plus glossary and index) is not only a long overdue treatment of interpretive planning, but is also a catalyst for thinking about the value and process of interpretation today. Though concise, this book raises the bar for interpretive planners and for the overall discipline of interpretation. Interpretive Planning: The 5M Model for Successful Planning Projects is sure to be useful for planners, interpreters, instructors, and others involved with interpretation.

The first three chapters of this book define and discuss interpretive planning and provide a useful context for interpretive planning and planners. Chapter 4 provides a synopsis of the planning process followed by five chapters (Chapters 5-9) that address each of the Ms in the 5M model. The final two chapters contain post-planning considerations (Chapter 10) and plan formatting discussion (Chapter 11). This review highlights some of the gems contained in the book, and offers a few observations about why it is a much needed catalyst for the profession.


Book Review: Meaningful interpretation: How to connect hearts and minds to places, objects, and other resources
Larsen, D. L., Ed. (2003).
Fort Washington, PA:
Eastern National.

Reviewed by Theresa G. Coble
Assistant Professor
Arthur Temple College of Forestry
Stephen F. Austin State University
Nacogdoches, TX
tcoble@sfasu.edu

Introduction
Csikszentmihalyi introduced the concept of flow several decades ago. To him, flow was the zone where everything “clicks,” the place where our skills are just sufficient to meet the challenges we face. For interpreters, the challenges are high. Our visitors bring diverse backgrounds, meanings, motivations and interests. They value our resources differently. They bring differing commitments to protecting our resource. Interpreters do experience flow, at least some of the time. When flow happens an observer might conclude: when it’s “working” for the interpreter it tends to “work” for the audience. But what exactly is working?

Meaningful Interpretation is a visually appealing, leather-bound volume edited by David L. Larsen, training manager for interpretation, education, partnerships, recreation and conservation at the Stephen T. Mather Training Center in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Meaningful Interpretation fills an essential need in the ongoing professionalization of interpretation. The workbook-style text helps interpreters crack the code, solve the mystery and put the pieces together to realize their dreams of interpretive excellence and effectiveness.



Processing and Utilizing Counterintuitive Information in Interpretation and Resource Management: A Case Study

David Matthew Zuefle, Ph.D.
Park and Recreation Management Program
The University of Mississippi
Oxford, Mississippi
zuefle@olemiss.edu

Introduction
Interpreters and other professionals working with the public in natural resource management settings depend on good information in order to develop effective communication and education strategies. But what happens when credible information that challenges some of the dominant assumptions of these professionals becomes available? The following research project was designed to yield valuable insights into one group of stakeholders in a wildlife management project in upper Appalachia. While it met its original goal, the project is also valuable because it serves as a case study of what happens when empirical data and field observations are seen as intuitively unappealing.

IN MY OPINION

Research in Interpretation: Researcher’s Perspective

Gail A. Vander Stoep, Ph.D.
Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan
vanders1@msu.edu

Is Interpretation Research a “Catch 22”?
A “push me, pull me cart.1” Catch-22. The old torture technique of pulling arms and legs simultaneously. These are the analogies and metaphors that drift into my interpreter’s brain as I think about research and interpretation. I wonder why the images have such stress and strain attached to them when research should and can be an exciting endeavor of exploration, discovery and problem-solving. In brief, I believe it is due to the conflicting and contradictory demands often placed on researchers (at least university-based researchers) when the expectation is that research can be exciting, integrative, and have multiple benefits and applications. Thus this puzzling dilemma becomes itself a subject of inquiry. A study would be nice, but my reflections across nearly 25 years of involvement with interpretation, research, and universities will suffice for this opinion piece....


In Search of Research
A Plea from the Workshop of a Practical Interpreter

Michael H Glen, FAHI, FTS, FSAScot
Touchstone Heritage Management Consultants
Cruachan, Tayinloan, Tarbert PA29 6XF, Scotland
GlenTigstane@aol.com

Trusty, or just rusty, tools?
When you open up your interpreter’s toolkit, you pick out an enthusiastic pair of pliers to grip hold of a theme, an explanatory hammer to nail down a good story, or an inspirational screwdriver to drive home a message. You don’t often make time to check the effectiveness of these tools or the techniques for using them. Because you’re busy worrying about what you’re doing, you park any thoughts about how they’re doing it for you. If you’re lucky, you meet colleagues who tell you about improved pliers, superior hammers, or enhanced screwdrivers that research and testing have shown to work better—and why. You didn’t read the researchers’ reports in the journals and you’ve forgotten the references to the findings in newsletters. They didn’t get their message over—and it’s your fault! Or is it...?


Interpretation Isn’t Magic
An Academic’s View on the Role of Research in Teaching Interpretation

Sam H. Ham, Ph.D.
Professor and Director
Center for International Training & Outreach
Department of Resource Recreation and Tourism
University of Idaho
Moscow, Idaho
sham@uidaho.edu

One of the perplexing things about interpretation from a research point of view is that we haven’t always agreed on what “interpretive research” should focus on, even at the most general level. Arguments abound to this day on what interpretation is, and what its functions and outcomes ought to be. This perplexity characterized interpretation circles especially in the early 1960s, and even to this day. Metaphors from metaphysics and magic were often used to describe interpretation. When we spoke about outcomes, we were likely to invoke elusive notions like “gleams in the visitor’s eye, “magical experiences,” “enlightenment,” “awakening,” “appreciation,” “revelation” and “enrichment.” When we spoke about the inputs of interpretation we conceptualized nameless “gimmicks,” “gadgets,” “tricks,” and “approaches.” But there was little in these concepts we could sink our teeth into and apply without the benefit of theory and research....


Research: A Voice of Our Own
A Management Perspective on Research

David L. Larsen
Training Manager, Interpretive Development Program
Stephen T. Mather Training Center
National Park Service
David_Larsen@nps.gov

During my third season, the park conducted an interpretive study. The staff was skilled (no evidence for that but my memory, intuition, and the quantity of praise from visitors who liked us) but we fought the research. We dragged our feet, called meetings in protest, and tried our best to skew the results in our favor.

I think we were afraid.

We knew we were good and we believed our quality could not be quantified. Because we were certain the professors and managers could not measure our success, we were also sure they could use the results against us. We were afraid that research would end the interpretation we practiced.

The professor got tired of our resistance and gave up.

It was our loss....


Interpretation Research
A Perspective from the Field

Joe Zarki
Chief of Interpretation
Joshua Tree National Park
National Park Service
Department of the Interior
joe_zarki@nps.gov

The recently published Meaningful Interpretation (Larsen, 2003) contains Tanaka Shozo’s wonderfully poetic observation: “The care of rivers is not a question of rivers, but of the human heart.” Shozo eloquently summarizes the challenge that has faced preservationists since the days of John Muir and Enos Mills. Landscapes (including rivers) and cultural heritage are protected because people want them that way. As interpreters, we understand that protection of heritage resources occurs only when people see greater value for special places and objects in their preserved state, rather than value gained through development. Interpreters who wish to learn what must be done to ensure the protection of parks should first look into the human heart and know the people they seek to motivate. This path leads directly to interpretive research....