Interest in Birds and Its Relationship with Attitudes and Myths: A Cross-Cultural Study in Countries with Different Levels of Economic Development.

AbstractBirds are one of the most important species that can help protect biodiversity. Although birds are important beings for biodiversity and human existence, there is a relatively less quantity of research that has investigated the interest in and attitudes toward birds. This study aims to investigate the knowledge level of and attitudes toward birds among students in countries at different levels of economic development. To collect the data, a Bird Knowledge Questionnaire and a Bird Attitude Questionnaire were developed and used by the researchers in this study. These questionnaires were administered to a total of 852 students from different countries, including Colombia, Germany, Slovakia, and Turkey. The results obtained in this study showed that Colombian students had the highest interest in birds as compared to students in Slovakia, Turkey, and Germany. Girls had consistently higher interest in birds than boys in all countries, but there were no gender differences in the cognitive domain. Our research suggests that factual knowledge about birds is not a necessary prerequisite for interest in birds, but animal-related activities show strong associations with an interest in birds.Keywords: Attitudes * Birds * Cross-cultural study * Myths * Science educationThere are more than 10,000 bird species worldwide, and birds are often used as flagship species for environmental and nature conservation purposes because they appeal to most people in developed countries (Randler & Bogner, 2006). However, birds can also be seen either negatively as pest species (e.g., weaver birds; Ploceidae; Ward et al. 1979), or positively as pollinators or insect feeders (Jones & Sieving, 2006; Klein et al., 2007) or as food (Meiklejohn, 1962). In this study, we addressed the interest in birds and its relationship to other variables (attitudes, knowledge, animal-related activities, and culture). In the following literature overview, we discuss all these aspects.Role of InterestInterest is one of the most powerful variables in explaining achievement and motivation in learning and instruction and in educational research in general (Hidi, 2006; Schiefele, Krapp, & Wintelar, 1992). Interest is also a facet (among others) of intrinsic motivation within the context of the self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Interest is often related to achievement (Christidou, 2011; Hummel & Randler, 2012; Randler & Bogner, 2007), and high interest is believed to lead to high academic achievement.Concerning gender differences in adolescents in biological education, Jones, Howe, and Rua (2000) found that among sixth-grade students, girls were more interested in AIDS and in eating to stay healthy, while boys were more curious about technical issues. In elementary schools, boys preferred the physical sciences, while girls the biological sciences (Adamson, Foster, Roark, & Reed, 1998). Researchers have reported that, in general, girls expressed a greater interest in biology (Dawson, 2000; Prokop, Tuncer, & Chuda, 2007; Uitto, Juuti, Lavonen, & Meisalo, 2006). However, some studies found no gender differences in the interest in and the attitudes toward biology. For example, third and fourth grade boys and girls did not differ in their interest in amphibians (Randler, Ilg, & Kern, 2005), zoology (Randler, Osti, & Hummel, 2012), or biology in general (Usak et al., 2009). Similarly, no gender differences in self-generated questions were reported about biology, zoology, and botany (Baram-Tsabari & Yarden, 2005). Interest in biology is high in grades 5 and 6, but decreases with older students or upper grade levels (Baram-Tsabari & Yarden, 2005; Prokop, Prokop, & Tunnicliffe, 2007; Prokop, Tuncer, & Chuda, 2007).Birds are one of the most important species that can help protect biodiversity (Prokop & Rodak, 2009). Although birds are important for biodiversity and human existence, there is relatively less research that has investigated the interest in birds (Prokop, Kubiatko, & Fancovicova, 2008). …