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JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
experiences with the landscape and how people change the
landscape (for example, by building cities, dams, etc.). Here is a
room for evaluation questions such as - How does the child
perceive the diversity of the landscape? How does he or she
describe the country? How does he or she perceive its
transformation by man? (more on www.statpedu.sk, 2016, p.
64). As emphasized by G. Imashey et al. (2020), environmental
education is a continuous process of training, self-education,
gaining experience, which leads to the personality development,
because value orientations are formed by acquired specific
knowledge about environmental protection and care for nature,
that become standards of behavior in everyday life.
Forest pedagogy takes place in natural conditions, in a forest
environment. There was developed the Concept of Forest
Pedagogy as a part of environmental education (Marušáková, et
al. 2010) in Slovakia. It was approved by the Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development of the Slovak Republic no.
2824 / 2011-710. It defines the forest pedagogy as follows:
Forest pedagogy as a part of environmental education is
learning about the forest ecosystem and educating for a long-
term sustainable way of life on the example of the functioning of
forest ecosystems. Forest pedagogy activities can be in the form
of formal and non-formal education.
The education of forest teachers together with the coordination
of forest pedagogy activities is in Slovakia provided by the
National Forest Centre (more on www.lesnapedagogika.sk). It is
an accredited educational program Forest Pedagogy in the range
of 80 hours, which
can be completed by experts - foresters. At
the request of kindergartens or primary schools within the frame
of formal education, graduates of the Forest Pedagogy program
can teach topics related to the forest environment - animals in
the forest, deciduous and coniferous trees, anthill, trees and
fruits, living and inanimate nature, the profession of a forester ,
hunting bees, etc. If the forester - forest pedagogue covers the
topics of the National Educational Programm and respects all
didactic principles we can talk about forest pedagogy within the
formal education. However, it has its place mainly in non-formal
education. The kindergarten can contact a forest pedagogue also
to pursue hobbies in the field of environmental education, or we
can carry out various activities with foresters in cooperation with
parents, or there can be established hobby departments (hunting,
forestry, beekeeping) in leisure centers.
Since its establishment in 2006, the National Forest Centre has
also been working actively in the field of environmental
education. It cooperates with all types of schools. It has
experience in implementing national and international projects
that focus on environmental education and education for
sustainable development. We can mention following nationwide
projects – Les ukrytý v knihe (The Forest Hidden in the Book),
Detská lesnícka univerzita (Children's Forestry University),
Lesná olympiáda (Forest Olympics), etc. These projects have
been conducted successfully for several years. That has probably
caused a great interest of teachers in forest pedagogy and
cooperation with forest pedagogues. The research carried out by
the National Forest Centre in 2015 focused on finding out
interest in experiential forest pedagogy programs, in which 81
kindergartens and primary schools participated, revealed, among
other things, that 58% of respondents positively evaluate a stay
in a forest natural environment with a forest pedagogue. In
second place with 38% were experiential programs in a forest
classroom that is located in a forest environment. Events for the
public organized by foresters, a visit of a forester in a school
facility were appreciated by 25% of respondents and multimedia
educational programs about the forest were positively evaluated
by 16% of respondents (Sarvašová et al., 2016).
Several classes have participated in walks with forest teachers in
recent years. And their interest in such activities persists. The
kindergarten teachers are showing great interest in forest
pedagogy. This is also reflected in the number of teachers who
registered for innovative education Teaching about the forest, by
which the National Forest Centre has expanded its offer of
environmental education also to primary education teachers and
educators.
In 2019, we started a research project in Slovakia. The core of it
is applied pedagogical research - Forest pedagogy and education
for sustainable development in pre-primary and primary
education. We based its starting points also on the results of
some of our and foreign pedagogical research (Kollárová, 2018,
Warden, 2012) as well as the results of cooperation between the
Faculty of Education of Constantine the Philospoher University
in Nitra and the National Forest Centre - Institute for Forest
Consulting and Education. The key idea of the project is to
support new trends in education that aim at innovative and
activating approaches, with an emphasis on linking theory to
practice.
2 Research on identifying factors involved in environmental
education of preschool children
To identify the key factors, we decided to use a quantitative-
qualitative research strategy.
The aim of the research was to find out which factors affect the
informal pre-primary education of children in environmental
education in the forest environment. Since this is mainly a
qualitative methodology, where we studied what subjective
characteristics link the participants to factors affecting
the child
's knowledge and forming the relationship to nature - to the
forest environment, we did not set hypotheses. We focused on
the research question, based on the research goal - Which factors
influence the non-formal pre-primary education of children in
environmental education in the forest environment. Partial goals
of the research, or more precisely the questions, were which
factors we can consider positive and which negative.
2.1 Research methods
To get the answers to these research questions, we decided to use
the Delphi method. The Delphi method is a method of
qualitative research based on structured group communication.
The basis is the "Syndrome of Groupthink" by gathering the
opinions of selected experts on the issue (Cialkowska et al.
2008). As stated by the authors (McKenna 1994, Lynn et al.,
1998), the goal is to reach a consensus, group viewpoint
on a
given research question. It should be noted that there is no
consistent method when applying the Delphi method. There can
be found several approaches in literature (Hasson, Keeney,
McKenna, 2000). The principle of the Delphi method is based on
using a teamwork, provided that when more experts -
participants will give their opinion on the topic, they are less
likely to make the wrong decision. There is a greater risk of
incorrect decisions when expert works alone.
When applying this research method the selection of experts is
crucial (Goodman, C.M., 1987; Baker, J et al. 2006). The experts
answer the questions through multi-round inquiries with
controlled feedback between rounds. During repeated inquiries,
they can change or correct their opinion according to the
feedback from other experts. It is important that their anonymity
is maintained throughout the whole inquiry process. It removes
concerns about expressing their own opinion. The number of
experts is not limited. It is also taken into consideration that not
all the experts will send their answers.
According to Palán (2002), this method is most often used to
anticipate (predict) further developments in a certain area and to
make prospective estimates. Novák (2007) indicated that it is
appropriate to apply it for those areas of research where we need
to obtain expert opinions on issues that are difficult to detect
by
statistical or other methods.
For the needs of our research, we have chosen three rounds of
research. The research took place since March 2019 to April
2020. The research itself was preceded by a preparatory phase,
where a research problem and a research question were
identified and a panel of experts was selected.
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