Abstract
Assessment of environmental literacy and ocean literacy focus on increasing knowledge and awareness. The goal of ocean literacy initiatives is ultimately to enable behaviour change (whereby citizens take direct and sustainable action) to achieve sustainable solutions to marine environment issues. The application of social and behavioural research methods provides powerful tools for assessing if ocean literacy initiatives are effective at increasing participant’s knowledge and awareness of an issue, its causes and consequences and behaviours or actions required to enable sustainable solutions. Social and behavioural research methods also provide a means of assessing changes in attitude, a key predictor of behaviour change, and ultimately a means of assessing changes in a participants intended and reported behaviours. We present a framework to integrate social and behavioural research methods within assessment of the effectiveness of ocean literacy initiatives. The before and after assessment we undertake develops existing environmental literacy and ocean literacy assessment approaches by integrating social and behavioural research methods to assess key predictors of behaviour change. We structured the assessment methodology within a Theory of Change logic model, to provide a protocol for systematic evaluation of ocean literacy initiatives and tools. Specifically those aimed at promoting specific behaviour change objectives for pre-identified actors. Assessment of educational training courses for professionals entering the shipping industry (targeting behaviours to reduce the spread of invasive species), and educational workshops for school students (aged 11-15 and 16-18), on problems related to marine litter and microplastics and potential solutions were assessed using the framework. Through before and after surveys, an increase in awareness, knowledge and an increase in attitudes supporting action to reduce impacts on the marine environment were reported by participants, after interaction with sets of tools developed by the Horizon 2020 Ocean Literacy project ResponSEAble. Results supported the importance of targeting specific audiences with tailored ocean literacy tools and the importance of informing actors of issues and solutions within the context of wider ocean literacy principles.
Highlights
The concept of Ocean Literacy, defined as, “understanding the oceans influence on you and your influence on the ocean.” Schoedinger et al (2005) underpins the concept of environmental or ocean or marine citizenship
Attitude and intended behavior objectives were met for both tools, the results suggest that the tools were effective at promoting ocean literacy and behavior change goals for the participants in the case study examples
Thereby, the consideration of the predictors of behavior change, identified by Klöckner (2013), are likely to be as influential in assessing the effectiveness of the ocean literacy initiatives as relying on self-reported behavior intention alone
Summary
The concept of Ocean Literacy, defined as, “understanding the oceans influence on you and your influence on the ocean.” Schoedinger et al (2005) underpins the concept of environmental or ocean or marine citizenship. Thereby, increasing ocean literacy across public, industry and governance actors provides a society-wide approach, to reduce environmental impacts and pro-actively generate positive change. Negative implications for human societies, such as impacts on economic resources and human health are reduced. Within the United Nations revised roadmap for the “decade of ocean science for sustainable development,” ocean literacy underpins targets for citizens and stakeholders to have a more responsible and informed behavior toward the ocean and its resources (United Nations, 2018)
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