Development and validation of environmental education modules on biodiversity conservation for biology majors

• Main Author: Evangelista, Eden Vela
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2001
• Subjects: Environmental education; Biodiversity; Ecological heterogeneity; Teaching > Aids and devices; College students; Biology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/873
• Institution: De La Salle University

The study develops and validates environmental education modules for the course Biodiversity Conservation. Six modules representing a composite coverage of the course were developed. The topics include: The Nature of Biodiversity, The Diversity of Microorganisms, The Use-Value of Plants, The Use-Value of Marine Resources, The Threats to Biodiversity and Biodiversity Conservation. The modules include field-based activities to expose students to more realistic environment apart from the highly contrived classroom setting.The development and validation underwent six stages: (1) design stage, (2) module production stage, (3) validation stage, (4) revision, (5) try-out stage and (6) data analysis and interpretation.The modules were validated and tried-out at the Biology Department, Philippine Normal University, Manila. The class used for the try-out was composed of 34 BSE Biology students enrolled in Ecology in the second semester of school year 2000-2001.Based on the findings of this study, the following conclusions were drawn: (1) that there was a high degree of agreement among the raters as to the content validity of the modules. The agreement represents the estimates of reliability with high degree of efficiency and accuracy. The small standard deviation among the answers of the raters per item also showed that there was homogeneity in their answers (2) the readability level of the modules were appropriate for the reading level of the users - the college students; (3) the modules were evaluated by the students as clear and understandable based on the result of the communication index (4) results of students' evaluation also proved that the modules helped them develop some of their cognitive and affective skills and (5) majority of the students found the modules to be effective based on the significant gain scores in their posttest. A total of 22 (65 percent) of the students have a significant gain in scores from 12 points and above while 12 (35 percent) of the students did not gain 12 points and above in the posttest at 95 percent level of confidence. The results proved that the modules were effective as a learning instrument.