Exploring the implications of cultural diversity for environmental learning at an African aquarium

Abstract

Zoos and aquariums, which are visited by over 700 million people each year, can play a vital role in exposing and sensitising visitors about the importance of environmental conservation and encourage them to engage in environmentally responsible behaviours after their visit. To attract visitors, zoos and aquariums offer a range of experiences that focus on the viewing of live animals. These may include animal presentations, personal interactions between staff and visitors, opportunities to physically interact with the animals and, most commonly, the use of interpretive signage. Most zoo and aquarium experiences are aimed at increasing visitors’ awareness of, interest in and concern for environmental issues. To improve the design of visitor experiences, research is needed to evaluate the impact of a visit on visitor environmental learning outcomes, which are a major part of the zoo and aquarium raison d’etre. In this regard, literature indicates that little work has been undertaken to explore the impact that culture (and in the case of multicultural audiences, cultural diversity) has on visitors’ zoo and aquarium conservation learning experiences. Such information is of particular relevance to uShaka Sea World, located in the multicultural city of Durban, South Africa, where educational experiences have traditionally been modelled on Western best-practice without consideration of the increasing numbers of visitors from diverse cultural backgrounds. Accordingly, this thesis aims to build a better understanding of the needs of South African visitors to uShaka; to investigate the influence of culture on their on-site experiences and conservation learning; and to use such information to inform the design of culturally inclusive environmental learning experiences. This research involved the collection of primarily quantitative data from 748 visitors, representative of three cultural groups. Pre- and post-visit questionnaires were designed to identify relevant demographic, psychographic and cultural characteristics of visitors, as well as to provide information on how visitors experienced the site, and the impact of the visit on environmental learning measured immediately after the visit. The extent and nature of the impact of cultural group on visitor learning was assessed. The focus on cultural differences necessitated an extensive assessment of cultural equivalence of meaning, and adjustment for culture-specific response styles. Comparisons between the three cultural groups revealed differences on a range of learning outcomes, which could not be explained by confounding with other demographic variables, or by culture-specific response styles. Cultural group was, however, a relatively weak predictor of learning outcomes. Psychographic constructs, in particular motivational variables and connection to nature, were much stronger predictors of learning. The results of this study suggest that, while culture does have an impact on environmental learning, psychographic constructs explain much of this effect, as well as explaining a significant amount of additional variance. The findings of this study have important theoretical, methodological and practical implications for researchers interested in the influence of cultural background on environmental learning. The research describes the first analysis of the differences and similarities in visitor characteristics, experiences and environmental learning of three South African cultural groups. The study addressed the complex role of nature connectedness in environmental learning amongst multiple cultures. It has also provided insights regarding the communication of conservation messages and the use of message recall as a measure of environmental learning. By providing evidence of the importance of addressing cultural equivalence of meaning and culture-specific response styles in multicultural research, the study has contributed methodologically to the design of more culturally sensitive instruments by providing future researchers with suggestions to manage the methodological challenges of multicultural research. Implications for the design of culturally responsive environmental learning activities are discussed and recommendations for future research are presented.