Relationship between connectedness with nature and environmental beliefs

Abstract

Connectedness to nature is defined as a feeling of belonging to natural environment. Studies over relationship between connectedness and environmental beliefs from the New Paradigm Environmental Scale, show low-mean correlation values. The aim of this research is to test whether the levels of correlations are by a methodological bias or they are by their structural. An indicental sample of 459 college was involved. At methodological level, we estimated levels of connectedness and beliefs through Item Response Theory. The “ltm” library of R program was used. Then the estimates values were correlated. The results showed low-mean values of relationship between the two variables. This results, together with those from the literature reviewed suggests that the relationship is structural, not by the methodology used. Finally, the educational implications are discussed.

Keywords

• education
• environment
• item response theory