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Sustainable development

Education for Sustainable Development in Protected Areas: A Cognitive-Emotion-Behavior Framework

Strategic Insights

— 2 min read

New research in sustainability focuses on education for sustainable development (ESD) in protected areas, aiming to address global climate change and biodiversity conservation. The study, conducted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, investigated the impact of ESD on cognition, emotion, and behavior in protected areas. The research constructed a cognitive-emotion-behavior dimension framework of ESD, using Potatso National Park in Yunnan as a case study. The findings demonstrated that cognitive and emotional factors jointly drive behavioral intentions of ESD in protected areas, with social-emotional factors being slightly higher than cognitive factors. The study also identified environmental knowledge, personal norms, nature connectedness, and place attachment as positive predictors of behavioral intentions. Indigenous knowledge was found to have an impact on behavioral intentions through emotional mediation, while personal norms affected behavioral intentions through direct effects. The research concluded with suggestions for further development of ESD, including forming environment-friendly social norms and improving people's emotions to enhance behavioral intentions.

Key Takeaways:

  • A cognitive-emotion-behavior dimension framework of ESD in protected areas was constructed and validated, highlighting the importance of social-emotional factors in driving behavioral intentions.
  • Environmental knowledge, personal norms, nature connectedness, and place attachment positively affected behavioral intentions of ESD in protected areas.
  • Indigenous knowledge had an impact on behavioral intentions through emotional mediation, and personal norms had a direct effect on behavioral intentions.
  • Gender and visit frequency were identified as important moderating variables in the ESD of protected areas.
  • The research provided suggestions for further development of ESD, including improving people's emotions and forming environment-friendly social norms.
  • The study emphasized the importance of specific groups being taught specifically and improving supporting services of ESD.

Statistics:

  • 529 valid visitor questionnaires were used in the study.
  • Cognitive and emotional factors jointly influenced behavioral intentions of ESD in protected areas, with social-emotional factors being slightly higher than cognitive factors (51.2% vs. 48.8%).
  • Environmental knowledge, personal norms, nature connectedness, and place attachment positively affected behavioral intentions, with correlations of 0.63, 0.51, 0.42, and 0.39, respectively.
  • Indigenous knowledge had a significant impact on behavioral intentions through emotional mediation, with a correlation of 0.35.
  • Personal norms had a direct effect on behavioral intentions, with a correlation of 0.25.
  • Gender and visit frequency were identified as important moderating variables, with moderate effects of 0.38 and 0.23, respectively.

Sources:

  • International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2022;19(15):9769.
  • Mdpi, St Alban-Anlage 66, Ch-4052 Basel, Switzerland.
  • Minyan Zhao, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, People's Republic of China.
  • Yan Ding, Zehong Li, Bing Xia, Zhanna Atutova, and Dmitry Kobylkin.
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China.

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