Multidisciplinary Journal for Education, http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/muse.2015.2309 Social and Technological Sciences EISSN: 2341-2593 Uncovering patterns of interest in useful plants Frequency analysis of individual students’ interest types as a tool for planning botany teaching units Peter Pany1, 2*, Christine Heidinger1 1Austrian Educational Competence Centre for Biology (AECCbio), University of Vienna. Porzellangasse 4, 1090 Vienna, Austria. 2Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna. Rennweg 14, 1030 Vienna, Austria. * Corresponding author: E-Mail: peter.pany@univie.ac.at; Phone: +43(0)6802125676 Abstract The paper presented examines how useful plants can help counteracting “plant blindness” – a phenomenon leading people to overlook plants in everyday-life. Recent research indicates that people are most likely interested in useful plants, hence this group of plants could be used to trigger interest in botanical content in general. This study has investigated the structure of interest in five subgroups of useful plants (medicinal plants, stimulant herbal drugs, spice plants, edible plants, and ornamental plants). For this purpose, the FEIN-questionnaire (Fragebogen zur Erhebung des Interesses an Nutzpflanzen = Questionnaire acquiring interest in useful plants) was filled in by N = 1,299 pupils from grade 5 to 12. Data analysis shows (for all age groups and both genders) that medicinal plants and stimulant herbal drugs trigger high interest while spice plants, edible plants and ornamental plants raise only lower interest. However, mean values do not allow conclusions on an individual level (e.g. in a school class). In order to gain information about the interest structure in a specific target group teachers deal with in practice, we have analysed the interests on an individual level using frequency analysis of different interest types. Results show that stimulant herbal drugs seem to strongly polarize students, whereas medicinal plants are interesting for almost the whole sample. Eventually, medicinal plants turned out to be well suited to introduce botanical content by means of plants catching the interest of as many students as possible. Therefore, medicinal plants should be established as flagships counteracting plant blindness. Keywords Interest types; Medicinal Plants; Plant Blindness; Questionnaire; Students’ Interest; Useful Plants Pany and Heidinger (2015) http://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/MUSE/ Mult. J. Edu. Soc & Tec. Sci. Vol. 2 Nº 1 (2015): 15-39 | 15 Multidisciplinary Journal for Education, http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/muse.2015.2309 Social and Technological Sciences EISSN: 2341-2593 1. Introduction Teaching botanical content is one of the hardest tasks in biology lessons (Greenfield, 1955). A prominent reason for this fact is a phenomenon called “plant-blindness”, described about twenty years ago (Bozniak 1994; Wandersee and Schussler 2001). Plant blindness leads people to overlook plants in everyday life and therefore they do not gain knowledge about them (Wandersee and Schussler 1999; Schussler, Link-Pérez, Weber and Dollo 2010). Furthermore, studies on students’ interest in biological topics show that botanical issues are the most boring for students (Elster 2007; Lindemann-Matthies, 2005). During adolescence their interests shift from animal biology rather to human biology and the interest in plants decreases even more (Baram-Tsabari and Yarden 2007; Baram-Tsabari, Sethi, Bry and Yarden 2010; Osborne and Collins 2001; Tamir and Gardner 1989). Moreover, plants are often seen as inferior creatures compared to animals (Flannery 2002) and are perceived only as a kind of scenery for animal life (Schussler and Olzak 2008; Wandersee and Schussler 1999). Though, according to educational psychology research pre-existing interests are an important key for connecting new information to existing knowledge (Hidi and Baird 1986; Hidi 1990; Krapp 1999) and interest is an important basis for the development of intrinsic motivation to deal with a subject and thereby gain deeper knowledge (Deci 1992; Deci and Ryan 1993). Therefore, students’ lack of interest in plants is a big challenge for biology teachers, especially when the high educational value of botanical knowledge is taken in to account. Knowledge about plants is an important prerequisite for the understanding of central biological concepts like evolution (Wandersee and Schussler 1999), lifecycles (Schussler and Winslow 2007) or the role of plants in ecological cycles like the carbon cycle (Wandersee and Schussler 1999). Without profound botanical proficiency students develop a restricted view on nature which may also affect their attitudes towards their environment or environmental problems (Dillon et al. 2006). Pany and Heidinger (2015) http://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/MUSE/ Mult. J. Edu. Soc & Tec. Sci. Vol. 2 Nº 1 (2015): 15-39 | 16 Multidisciplinary Journal for Education, http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/muse.2015.2309 Social and Technological Sciences EISSN: 2341-2593 Hence, plants have to be placed at the centre of humans’ perception of nature. But how can biology education endeavour to accomplish this purpose? The chosen approach in the present study is to start from students’ interests. As educational science research (e.g. Deci and Ryan 1993; Hidi and Baird 1988; Krapp 1989) has extensively pointed out, it makes sense to distinguish between two different forms of interest. Whereas individual interest in a subject develops gradually, is composed of subject knowledge and values and is regarded as a long lasting preference for a certain topic, on the other side, situational interest is a specific state which has its origin in a certain stimulus. It occurs spontaneously in different situations and is of only short duration. Therefore, in our studies we focused on the more stable individual interests. In our literature review we pursued the question whether there are any groups of plants which are interesting for students. These groups could then be used by teachers as gateways to botanical content. Unfortunately most studies on students’ interest in biological topics do not investigate systematically the interest in different groups of plants (e.g. Wandersee 1986). Quite on the contrary, plants are rather treated as a homogenous group in these studies. For example in the international investigation of students’ interest in science topics called “Relevance of Science Education” [ROSE] students were asked very general questions with regard to their interest in botanical topics, e.g. „How plants grow and reproduce“, „Plants in my locality“ (Schreiner and Sjøberg 2004). However, first hints that the group of useful plants could be worth examination came from (Mayer and Horn 1993) who showed that students prefer living organisms which are of value for human use. In addition Krüger and Burmester (2005) found that beside the “look of plants”, the “usefulness of plants” is the most prominent category students use to put plants into order. Hammann (2011) partially supports the hypothesis that the group of useful plants is interesting for students by showing that students are highly interested in medical plants. Pany and Heidinger (2015) http://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/MUSE/ Mult. J. Edu. Soc & Tec. Sci. Vol. 2 Nº 1 (2015): 15-39 | 17 Multidisciplinary Journal for Education, http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/muse.2015.2309 Social and Technological Sciences EISSN: 2341-2593 Following this trace, we systematically explored the interest of students in useful plants. As recent research has shown that questionnaires are appropriate tools for examining students’ interests (Urhahne, Jeschke, Krombaß and Harms 2004) we developed the FEIN-Questionnaire (Fragebogen zur Erhebung des Interesses an Nutzpflanzen = Questionnaire acquiring interest in useful plants) in order to explore the interest in different subgroups of useful plants in different age groups and genders. For this purpose, the FEIN-questionnaire was filled in by N = 1,299 Austrian students (age ranging from 10–18 years). Data analysis showed that the structure of interest in useful plants resulting from a PCA, followed the botanical differentiation into the five subgroups medicinal plants, stimulant herbal drugs, spice plants, edible plants and ornamental plants which all raise different degrees of interest (Sales-Reichartzeder, Pany and Kiehn 2011; Pany 2014). The means of interest of the whole sample show that medicinal plants were the most interesting group, followed by stimulant herbal drugs and spice plants. All three plant groups attracted above average interest of students of all age groups and both genders. Edible plants and ornamental plants attracted less interest (see Table 1). Furthermore, there were significant differences with regard to what degree different age groups were interested in the five plant subgroups. The interest in medicinal plants was high in younger students (10–12 years) and older students (17–19 years), but lower in the age groups between 12–16 years, whereas the interest in stimulant herbal drugs showed no significant differences between the four age groups. The interest in edible plants, ornamental plants and spice plants was significantly higher in younger students (10–12 years) than in the other age groups. Furthermore, ornamental plants showed strong gender differences in all ages, they are significantly more interesting for girls than for boys. Table 1. Means (M) and standard-deviation (SD) of interest in different plant groups measured with the FEIN-Questionnaire; Means above 2.5 indicating above average interest. From: Pany (2014) Plant group M SD Medicinal plants 3.09 0.75 Stimulant herbal 2.90 0.88 Pany and Heidinger (2015) http://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/MUSE/ Mult. J. Edu. Soc & Tec. Sci. Vol. 2 Nº 1 (2015): 15-39 | 18 Multidisciplinary Journal for Education, http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/muse.2015.2309 Social and Technological Sciences EISSN: 2341-2593 drugs Spice plants 2.56 0.78 Edible plants 2.43 0.78 Ornamental plants 2.32 0.89 As present research (Baram-Tsabari et al. 2010; Strgar 2007) has pointed out, it is important to gain as much information as possible about the interest profiles prevailing in the target group in order to connect the science curriculum and its content to students’ interests. Baram-Tsabari and Yarden (2009) used for example cluster-analysis to identify groups of students with similar interests in a large scale study and proposed using such data as support for the choice of content in science classes. They actually called it a “shadow-curriculum” supposed to assist teachers in complying with their respective national science curricula. Comparing the data presented above, it may be concluded that medicinal plants as well as stimulant herbal drugs are suited as gateways to botanical content meeting students’ pre- existing interests, and hence could be recommended as exemplary content of school lessons. Both plant groups attract above average interest of students of all age groups and both genders. Nevertheless, this inference has to be treated with caution. As Valsiner (1986) has clearly pointed out, population data – as for example means or correlational data – do not allow conclusions on an individual level. However, most data on students’ interest reported in science education literature, including our own investigations up to now, are calculations on population level (e.g. Elster 2007; Pany 2014; Sjøberg and Schreiner 2010). Hence, they allow drawing conclusions and making predictions only on this level and not on an individual level whereas direct information on an individual level is necessary for planning a botany lesson that is interesting for as many students as possible. While working in the classroom a teacher actually does not deal with a group of “mean students” but with a group of students each having diverse individual interests. Inspired by such reasoning, the present study analyses students’ interest in useful plants Pany and Heidinger (2015) http://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/MUSE/ Mult. J. Edu. Soc & Tec. Sci. Vol. 2 Nº 1 (2015): 15-39 | 19 Multidisciplinary Journal for Education, http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/muse.2015.2309 Social and Technological Sciences EISSN: 2341-2593 on an individual level in order to get a suitable answer which subgroup of useful plants is the most promising key to counteract plant blindness in the classroom. 2. Material and Methods 2.1 Questionnaire The FEIN-Questionnaire tests five scales which measure the interest in edible plants, spice plants, stimulant herbal drugs, medicinal plants and ornamental plants. Each of these plant groups is represented by three items; the whole questionnaire contains 15 items. The design of the items follows the ROSE-Questionnaire (=Relevance of Science Education), an instrument used in one of the largest international comparative studies investigating students’ views on Science and Science Education in 41 countries (Schreiner and Sjøberg 2004). The items are formulated as headlines describing the object of interest, e.g. “plants to improve my room” or “plants curing a sore throat”. Similar to ROSE the FEIN-questionnaire uses a four-stage Likert-scale (1-Not interested, 2-Rather not interested, 3-Rather interested, and 4-Very interested). Additionally, the following demographic data were collected in the questionnaire: sex, age, grade, school. Without any time pressure, filling in the questionnaires took approximately 10 to 15 minutes. 2.2 Survey Participants From March to May 2010, fifteen secondary schools voluntarily participated in the present study, each of these located in a different Viennese district and two outside Vienna, altogether providing a representative cross section of secondary schools in and around Vienna. The questionnaires were filled in voluntarily during the students’ biology lessons. A total of 1,417 students answered the questionnaire; 118 of them were excluded due to missing, double, or obvious hoax answers (e.g. zigzag patterns), which resulted in Pany and Heidinger (2015) http://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/MUSE/ Mult. J. Edu. Soc & Tec. Sci. Vol. 2 Nº 1 (2015): 15-39 | 20 Multidisciplinary Journal for Education, http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/muse.2015.2309 Social and Technological Sciences EISSN: 2341-2593 a final number of 1,299 participating students. These 1,299 questionnaires were filled in by 51% male and 49% female secondary school students. The sample was then divided into four subgroups: students between 10 and 12 years (age group 1), students between 13 and 14 years (age group 2), students between 15 and 16 years (age group 3) and students between 17 and 19 years (age group 4). Exact numbers are given in Table 2. Table 2. Descriptive data of the investigated sample (n = 1,299) Age group Group 1: 10–12 y Group 2: 13–14 y Group 3: 15–16 y Group 4: 17–19 y Total Male students 245 197 159 62 663 Female students 236 193 137 70 636 Total 481 390 296 132 1299 Percent of the sample 37 30 23 10 Mean of age (y) 11.2 13.51 15.53 17.55 14.40 2.3 Data treatment and Statistics In order to draw conclusions on an individual level, it was necessary to reduce the complexity of the data per participant, which consisted of five means of interest (one for each plant subgroup, each ranging from 1 to 4 in ten possible steps, resulting from the Likert-scale of the questionnaire).The method of complexity reduction was developed stepwise in order to reach a reduction level allowing meaningful conclusions from the data and therefore suitable as a basis for planning botany lessons. The challenge was to develop a procedure which takes into account the variation of the individual interest structure of each student but at the same time clusters the students to larger units, showing overlapping patterns of interest. So the aim of this procedure was to group the individuals in homogenous clusters of interest types – based on their individual interest structure. The process of complexity reduction and the development of this procedure are described in the following section. Rank order Pany and Heidinger (2015) http://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/MUSE/ Mult. J. Edu. Soc & Tec. Sci. Vol. 2 Nº 1 (2015): 15-39 | 21 Multidisciplinary Journal for Education, http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/muse.2015.2309 Social and Technological Sciences EISSN: 2341-2593 The first method of complexity reduction we applied was the calculation of the rank order of interest in the five groups of useful plants per participant. For this purpose, an interest rank order of the five subgroups (in order medicinal plants, stimulant herbal drugs, spice plants, edible plants and ornamental plants) for each participant was calculated, which resulted in a rank-order-code (e.g. 15342 means medicinal plants: first rank, stimulant herbal drugs: fifth rank, spice plants: third rank, edible plants: fourth rank and ornamental plants: second rank). In the end, the frequency of each rank-order-code in the sample was counted. This procedure still dealt with a number of possible combinations (55 = 3125) too large to give results which could be interpreted by identifying interest types (groups of students with similar interest structure) within the sample, because 394 of these possible combinations were actually realised in the population. Besides, these rank orders showed that only 1 % (13 of 1299 individuals) of the whole sample had an interest rank order identical with the one calculated from the means of the population (12345, see Table 1). Ninety-nine percent of the target group showed a deviating interest ranking (393 different rank-order-codes) of the five subgroups of useful plants. Remarkably, most of the rank-order-codes (211) were represented only by 2–5 individuals, 124 of the realised rank orders were represented by only one individual, which indicates a very high diversity of the population. Therefore, it was inevitable to further reduce the complexity of the data. In a next step, categories were generated from the ten possible interest values for each subgroup resulting in three interest levels per useful plant subgroup: “high interest (values ranging from 3 to 4) – level 3”, “medium interest (values between 2 and 3) – level 2” and “low interest (values ranging from 1 to 2) – level 1” (exact values are given in Table 3). Transforming the data in this way, the number of possible combinations of the resulting rank-order-code now was 35 = 243, which led to 208 realised combinations (none of them representing more than 4.3 percent of the sample), which was still too much to allow conclusions which might be helpful in planning botany lessons. Pany and Heidinger (2015) http://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/MUSE/ Mult. J. Edu. Soc & Tec. Sci. Vol. 2 Nº 1 (2015): 15-39 | 22 Multidisciplinary Journal for Education, http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/muse.2015.2309 Social and Technological Sciences EISSN: 2341-2593 Because of these reasons we decided to take into account only those subgroups of useful plants which best allow to differentiate between the interest structures of different individuals. Chi-square-tests on the distributions of interests in the five subgroups were calculated in order to select only the subgroups of useful plants which clearly deviate from an equal distribution (see Fig. 1 a-e and Table 3 and 4) and therefore show a distinct pattern of interest. Following this procedure, only interests in the subgroups of medicinal plants, stimulant herbal drugs and ornamental plants were used to characterize interest types in the sample. Figure 1. Frequencies (percent) of highly/medium/lowly interested students for all subscales of useful plants Pany and Heidinger (2015) http://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/MUSE/ Mult. J. Edu. Soc & Tec. Sci. Vol. 2 Nº 1 (2015): 15-39 | 23 Multidisciplinary Journal for Education, http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/muse.2015.2309 Social and Technological Sciences EISSN: 2341-2593 Table 3. Numbers of Individuals that have high/medium/low interest in the five subgroups of useful plants Medicinal Plants Stimulant Herbal Drugs Spice Plants Edible Plants Ornamental Plants Frequency Percent Frequency Percent Frequency Percent Frequency Percent Frequency Percent high Interest (3-4) 852 65.6 743 57.2 485 37.3 432 33.3 391 30.1 medium Interest (2