The Earth Force Survey

Abstract

The Earth Force Survey is a comprehensive psychological scale designed primarily to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of the Earth Force program, a national initiative focused on youth civic engagement and environmental action. The instrument consists of two major components: a Student Survey and an Educator Survey. The student version assesses changes in attitudes, beliefs, environmental awareness, and specific problem-solving skills gained through participation in the program. The Educator Survey gathers feedback from adult leaders regarding program implementation, support received, and perceived impacts on students and the school environment. This tool is crucial for measuring outcomes related to youth development and environmental stewardship.

Keywords

Environmental education, youth development, civic engagement, environmental attitudes, problem-solving skills, program evaluation, student survey, educator survey, Earth Force.

Authors

The authors are not explicitly named in the provided document, but the survey was developed for and utilized by the Earth Force organization for program evaluation purposes.

Purpose

The primary purpose of The Earth Force Survey is to function as a program evaluation tool. It systematically gathers data from both student participants and adult educators to quantify the effects of the Earth Force experience. For students, the objective is to measure changes in their commitment to environmental action, their awareness of local issues, their sense of efficacy, and their acquisition of practical skills relevant to civic and environmental problem-solving.

The educator portion of the survey is designed to assess the implementation fidelity and operational effectiveness of the Earth Force curriculum. This includes gauging the level of support provided by the organization, evaluating the usefulness of program materials (e.g., CAPS Educator’s Guide, GREEN Water Monitoring Kits), and understanding the resultant impact on the educators’ pedagogy and their school or community-based organization (CBO).

Construct

The Earth Force Survey measures several interrelated psychological and behavioral constructs central to youth development and environmental activism. These constructs largely align with models of civic and environmental literacy and efficacy. Key constructs measured include:

• Environmental Commitment and Attitude: Measuring the desire to solve environmental problems, willingness to change personal habits, and long-term commitment to environmental issues.
• Environmental Awareness and Knowledge: Assessing familiarity with local environmental issues and knowing where to find relevant information or contact community leaders.
• Civic and Environmental Self-Efficacy: Measuring the belief that one can personally make a difference, confidence in working with adults, and the belief that people working together can solve community problems.
• Action and Problem-Solving Skills: Evaluating the ability to identify problems, evaluate solutions, make decisions based on criteria, and work collaboratively to implement action projects (assessed via the pre/post skill section in the student survey).

Validity

The provided source material does not contain explicit statistical information regarding the scale’s validity (e.g., construct validity, criterion validity). However, based on the content of the items, the survey demonstrates strong face validity, as the questions directly address the stated goals of the Earth Force program, which center on student action, awareness, and skill development related to environmental issues.

Inferred validity may include content validity, given the comprehensive nature of the questions covering various stages of the Earth Force action process, from identification of a problem to working with others to solve it. Further validation research would typically employ correlations with external measures of environmental behavior or civic engagement.

Reliability

Specific metrics of reliability, such as internal consistency (e.g., Cronbach’s Alpha) or test-retest reliability, are not detailed in the available documentation. Given the structure of the student survey, particularly the 21-item Likert-style section assessing attitudes and beliefs, it is highly likely that internal reliability analyses were conducted during the scale’s development to ensure consistency among items designed to measure a single underlying dimension, such as environmental commitment or efficacy.

Factor Analysis

The source document does not provide any results from a factor analysis (exploratory or confirmatory). However, a factor analysis would typically be employed to confirm the underlying structure of the 21 attitude and belief items and the 12 skill items. Based on the item content, it is probable that the scale would yield distinct factors corresponding to the core constructs, such as Environmental Commitment, Civic Knowledge/Awareness, and Collaborative Action Skills, supporting the theoretical model of youth environmental civic engagement promoted by Earth Force.

Instrument

Test Type: Program Evaluation Survey (Mixed Method elements via open-ended questions).

Format: Self-administered questionnaire utilizing primarily a 4-point Likert scale (Very True for you, Sort of True for you, Not Very True, Not True at All) for attitudinal items, and a comparative 4-point scale (Not at All, A Little, Pretty Well, Very Well) for pre-post skill assessment.

Language Available: English (as presented in the source document).

Population Group: Youth participating in the Earth Force program (Student Survey) and Adult Educators/Leaders (Educator Survey).

Age Group: Students typically ranging from Pre-K/K up to 12th Grade, with the primary target likely being middle to high school students given the cognitive demands of civic action projects.

Population Details: Participants are involved in structured environmental and service-learning programs affiliated with Earth Force, often focusing on local community issues in various geographic locations across the United States.

Test Methodology: The student survey employs a combination of demographic data collection, Likert-scale attitude measurement, direct behavioral questions regarding project involvement, and a unique retrospective pretest-posttest format for assessing skill acquisition (Question 35), where respondents rate their skill level both at the beginning of the year and at the time of the survey.

Keywords

Youth efficacy, environmental stewardship, program assessment, civic education, skill acquisition, student leadership, community action, retrospective pretest-posttest.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in the source material.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided in the source material.

Correspondence Address: Correspondence is directed to the local Earth Force representative, suggesting decentralized administration and data collection specific to regional Earth Force affiliates.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: The survey appears to be proprietary material used internally by the Earth Force organization for evaluation purposes. Permissions for external use must be obtained directly from Earth Force or the associated research entity. The original PDF can be downloaded here: http://cart.rmcdenver.com/instruments/earth_force.pdf

Fee: Fee information is not provided.

Test Year: The specific year of this version of the survey is not explicitly stated in the document text, but it represents a version used for program evaluation during an active Earth Force program cycle.

Reference’s

The primary reference is the instrument itself, developed for the Earth Force program evaluation. Further academic references regarding validation studies would need to be sought through external databases related to Earth Force program outcomes or evaluation reports.

1. The Earth Force Survey Instrument (Student and Educator Versions). Accessed via RMC Research Corporation (Denver, CO).
2. Earth Force. (n.d.). Official Program Documentation and Curriculum Materials (CAPS, GREEN, After-School Programs).

Items of the The Earth Force Survey

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

For each statement below‚ please tell us if you feel that the statement is Very True for you‚ Sort of True for you‚ Not Very True‚ or Not True at All.

1. I want to help solve environmental problems
2. I would be willing to change my personal habits if it helped improve the environment
3. I feel that it is my responsibility to help solve environmental problems in my community
4. I think each person in the community should do what he or she can to protect the environment
5. My Earth Force experience makes me want to learn more about the environment
6. I believe that what I do every day can have an impact on the environment
7. I am committed to working on environmental issues now and later in life
8. I am aware of environmental issues in my school or community
9. I know where to find information on environmental issues
10. I know how to contact adults in my community to get information on community or environmental issues
11. I know what it takes to change the rules and laws that affect the environment in my school or community
12. I know how to work with others to solve an environmental problem in my school or community
13. I believe that I can personally make a difference in my school or community
14. I believe that young people can persuade other youth and adults to do things to improve the environment
15. I believe that people working together can solve community problems
16. I am confident in expressing my opinions in front of a group of adults
17. It is important to listen to people on all sides of a community issue if we want to find a solution that will work well for everyone in the community
18. I think it is more important to look for ways to help the environment for a long time than to do something that will just make a difference for a few days
19. I talk about local environmental issues with my friends or parents
20. I pay attention to local environmental issues when I hear about them.
21. I will act in ways to protect the environment for the rest of my life.

Question 35 (Skills Assessment, Pre/Post): How well could you do each of the following? (Not at all, A little, Pretty well, or Very well)

1. Identify an environmental issue in your community (sample question)
2. Find the right person to give you information on a community or environmental issue.
3. Identify what is good or bad about an idea of how to solve an environmental problem.
4. Change what you are doing on a project to make it work better
5. Decide whether a piece of information is likely to be correct and useful.
6. Make decisions based on clear criteria.
7. Make decisions only after looking at both sides of an issue.
8. Talk to people you don’t know about an issue you think is important.
9. Write letters‚ brochures‚ or stories to inform people about a community or environmental issue.
10. Work with other youth and adults to identify and solve a community or environmental problem.
11. Look at different ways to solve a problem until you find a solution.
12. Identify the steps you need to take to put a project into action.