Abstract:

Education for Sustainable development (ESD) seeks, according to pedagogies that it is based on, a transformation process of personal values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours to more sustainable ones. Emotional components of someone’s experiences, sense of responsibility, sensitivity towards environment / nature are very important parts of these processes. Connectedness to nature is often described as emotional connection human to nature, and it could include affective, psychomotor and/or cognitive domain of the individual. Connectedness to nature can be also understood as a personal trait and it can be measured. As many contemporary researches confirms, Connectedness to Nature also correlates or can be seen as an important part of Environmental Identity. In that context, it can be also understood as important prerequisite or base for Education for Sustainable development.

The main goal of this research was to adapt and validate two scales for measurement of these two constructs: Connectedness to Nature and Environmental Identity. In this context, we used Connectedness to Nature scale (CNS) (Mayer and Frantz, 2004, Frantz, 2020) and revised Environmental Identity Scale (EID) (Clayton, et al., 2021) on the sample of adults in the Republic of Croatia. The sample consisted of N=181 adults, N=8 males, and N=173 females in two counties (Primorsko-goranska, Međimurska) in Croatia. Other sociodemographic data were: age range 20-65 years, different professions, and lifestyles (N=4 vegetarians; N=7 members of eco- associations); living in urban (town N=81) and rural areas (country N=51) and mixed areas, houses, apartments and rooms/lodgers. The research was conducted online during March 2021. Adaptation and validation of both instruments included the translation and harmonization of specific terms.

The results confirmed very satisfactory values of measurements and universality of both scales compering to other researches/countries. CN Scale was conducted in the short version and had 10 items, with two items reversed scoring (items 4 and 10). EID Scale had 14 items, and one item reversed (item 12). EID scale was also conducted in revised shorter version. Reliability analysis results confirmed very high values of Cronbach Alfa, for CNS α =0,94; and EID α =0,89. Exploratory analysis of CNS resulted with two components (principal components) and Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (principal axis factoring, oblimin rotation) resulted with 2 factors explaining 80% variance. However, even single factor explanation, would be very satisfactorily solution. Exploratory analysis for EID resulted with two components and 58% variance explained. The results for CFA concluded 1 factor explaining 44% of the variance. We present also other significant results regarding these calculations (measurement characteristics, arithmetic values, standard deviations, etc.).

As far as we know, this kind of research has not been conducted in Croatia yet, so in adaptation and validation of these instruments on Croatian language, we see an opportunity to open and widen a new field of this contemporary research.

Acknowledgement:
This work is supported by the University of Rijeka with the project no. uniri-pr-drustv-19-19 1500.Providit.

Keywords:

Education for Sustainable development, Connectedness to Nature, Emotions, Environmental identity, and sensitivity.