How Can We Know that Ocean Literacy is Effective in Changing Behaviour?

Ocean literacy is defined as “understanding the ocean’s influence on you and your influence on the ocean” (Schoedinger et al . 2005). Besides this, an ocean-literate person should “understand the essential principles and fundamental concepts about the functioning of the ocean, communicate about the ocean in a meaningful way, and be able to make informed and responsible decisions regarding the ocean and its resources” (Schoedinger et al. 2005). This definition encloses the three main objectives of ocean literacy that are to enhance knowledge, bring awareness and trigger behaviour change.

Though generating knowledge and raising awareness are necessary steps, they alone are not the cause for changes in attitudes and behaviours. There are internal (e.g. emotions and values) and external (e.g. politico-economic and socio-cultural) factors that are crucial to achieve a pro-environmental behaviour. These factors are important to consider during the assessment of the effectiveness of ocean literacy tools targeted to different audiences such as students, public, educators, scientists, professionals, policy-makers, and stakeholders.

A group of researchers from the University of Plymouth in the UK designed a framework to assess the effectiveness of ocean literacy initiatives based on a Theory of Change logic model. To do this, they established seven predictors of behaviour, which are problem awareness, knowledge, attitude, self-efficacy, internal communication/social norm, environmental connectedness and behaviour change. In the following table, the definition of each predictor is briefly explained.

The researchers applied this framework to assess the effectiveness of two ocean educational tools. The first one was a two-day “Sustainable Seafaring” course directed to students (aged between 18-44 years old) training as engineering and deck officers in a technical college located in the Basque Autonomous Community. This course aimed to bring awareness and knowledge about the impacts of invasive species through ballast water, and also remark the profitability of companies that act in a sustainable manner. The second tool was a short film about the impact of microplastics in marine ecosystems, which was displayed to school pupils (aged between 12-15 years old) at the National Aquarium in Plymouth, UK.

In order to make the assessment, the researchers designed pre (before being in contact with the education tool) and post (after being in contact with the education tool) surveys with the same questions. The results of this study show that after the interaction with the education tools, on both cases, there was a shift from just knowledge about the topic towards an intended behaviour. This means that the individuals were able to reach an “ I will do this to help solve the issue” mind-set. Also, most of the other objectives were met with both tools, as students were more aware of the issue, their knowledge was increased, they had a high level of environmental connectedness and both their attitude and self-efficacy changed. In the case of rising communication about the issue, this was still moderate when using both tools. The researchers argue that the latter could be a consequence on how the experiment was set up, as the students filled the surveys 1 day after being in contact with the educational tools. It is highly likely that they did not have enough time to discuss or share the information they had learned with their friends, family or colleagues. Despite this, the general conclusion from this study is that both the two-day course and short film were effective ocean literacy tools to promote a sustainable behaviour.

Nonetheless, the complexity of human behaviour cannot be underestimated as it is deeply influenced by different factors. For instance, the researchers discuss that one disadvantage of the survey system is that it increases the risk of social desirability. Humans are social animals hence being socially connected is a basic need. Social desirability occurs when the people’s self-reports are biased, by providing responses that are socially expected and/or consistent with social norms. As a consequence, it cannot be guaranteed that the assessments of the ocean literacy tools are free from biases.

To add more complexity, moral disengagement is an impediment for a genuine behaviour change. Even though people express concern about environmental sustainability, ultimately they give it a low priority in their everyday life. The more abstract, dissimilar and temporally, spatially and socially distant the victims (humans, animals, plants, microorganisms) and impacts of marine environmental issues are, people will feel less morally obligated to take action. Another problem is the “blamelessness of unintentional action”. This means that people do not feel responsible for an action because it was unintentional. For example, no one wants to pollute the ocean neither it is intentional, for this reason they feel they should not be held responsible. However, the truth is that everybody contributes to ocean pollution and everyone is accountable. These are only two factors than influence behaviour change, but there is more than that, i.e. humans having multiple values to different personality traits and habits. Not mention that these internal factors are also partially shaped by external factors such as the social, cultural, religious political and economical conditions that surround us.

There is a vast need to understand these complexities but they fall outside the scope of natural sciences. Natural sciences have a crucial role in the understanding of the physical, biological and chemical nature of the ocean and the impacts caused on it. But social sciences can explore the human dimensions and also provide a range of methods that could be used to gain a better insight on how humans interrelate with the ocean. The application of social methods is necessary when assessing the effectiveness of ocean literacy tools, for they can really determined if there is a reliable behaviour change. For this reason, there is a call from social scientists to marine scientists to work hand in hand in order to incorporate social sciences into marine research, but most importantly, to help protect the ocean and its sustainability.

References:

Ashley, M., Pahl, S., Glegg, G., & Fletcher, S. (2019). A Change of Mind: Applying Social and Behavioural Research Methods to the Assessment of the Effectiveness of Ocean Literacy Initiatives. Frontiers in Marine Science , 6 , 288.

McKinley, E., Acott, T., & Yates, K. L. (2020). Marine social sciences: Looking towards a sustainable future. Environmental Science & Policy , 108 , 85-92.

Schoedinger, S., Cava, F., Strang, C., & Tuddenham, P. (2005, September). Ocean literacy through science standards. In Proceedings of OCEANS 2005 MTS/IEEE (pp. 736-740). IEEE.

Stoll-Kleemann, S. (2019). Feasible Options for Behavior Change towards More Effective Ocean Literacy: A systematic review. Frontiers in Marine Science , 6 , 273.