Evaluation and program planning
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Critical consideration of the role of environmental education in meeting conservation outcomes is increasingly necessary for environmental agencies and organizations. Evaluation can help move organizations to alignment between educational goals and organizational mission. Moving theory-driven evaluation into mission-based program theory, this chapter examines the ways in which educational goals can and should be linked to conservation outcomes for an agency or organization.
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We join the authors in this special issue in their call to embrace a culture of evaluation. Obstacles to change are formidable. ⋯ As in other fields, an evidence-based movement will increase the credibility and effectiveness of environmental education. A culture of evaluation offers educators a solid platform to collaboratively and efficiently achieve society's environmental goals.
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This discussion foregrounds four key issues engaged by the articles presented in this special issue: the unique challenges and opportunities of environmental education evaluation, how to think well about the evaluation approaches and purposes that best match this domain, evaluation capacity building in environmental education and action, and accountability and activist pressures on contemporary evaluation. Environmental education evaluators are encouraged to consider positioning their work in service of the public good.
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My Environmental Education Evaluation Resource Assistant or "MEERA" is a web-site designed to support environmental educators' program evaluation activities. MEERA has several characteristics that set it apart from other self-directed learning evaluation resources. Readers are encouraged to explore the site and to reflect on the role that self-directed learning resources can play in program evaluation and how those resources could be better designed.