환경 쟁점 수업에서 찬반토론이 학생들의 의사 결정에 미치는 영향

Effects of Pro-Con Discussion on Students' Decisions in a Class Introducing Environmental Issues

This study was aimed at finding what effects pro-con discussion classes have on students' environmental decisions and set a series of research questions as follows. First, in a small group discussion, how a student's environmental decision is affected by opinions of other students in the same group. Second, what would be the relations between a students' personal factors including gender, environmental knowledge, attitude, and behavior and their decisions. A decisional experiment was applied to 185 students consisting of 2 girl classes and 4 boy classes of K highschool located in Kongju City, Chungnam. These students were taking 'Ecology and Environment' as one of the few general selective subjects once a week. Decision issue introduced to the experiment was regarding of constructing a wind power station on Baekdu Mountains which is protected by the law. This issue can be characterized as not conflict between conservation and development but conflict between two different types of environment friendly approaches that make students experience more difficult while making a decision. The results of this study an be summarized as follows. First, after taking the class introducing environmental issues and having a debate other students on the issue both within a small group or all classmates together, just less then 30% of the students changed their selections. Second, students were found to be affected by other students' opinion while making his or her own decision. Third, no relationship was found to be statistically considerable between students decisions and their personal factors except of their courses, liberal or science.