The impact of teenagers' emotions on their complexity thinking competence related to climate change and its consequences on their future: looking at complex interconnections and implications in climate change education

This study seeks to address critical gaps in climate change education research with regard to (1) emotions triggered in teenage students learning about climate change, (2) the students’ complexity thinking competence in the context of climate change consequences, and (3) the interconnections between different types of emotions and the levels of complexity thinking competence in teenagers’ explanations of climate change. The study drew on quantitative and qualitative data from 315 (2013–2015) and 246 (2021) teenage secondary school students from a pre-/post-intervention survey from Austria’s year-long k.i.d.Z.21—Competent into the Future program, in which almost 3,500 students aged between 13 and 19 have participated up to now. Climate change triggered expected types of emotions in students. Following exploratory factor analyses, these were clustered into two groups. Multilevel modeling revealed that the k.i.d.Z.21 -modules had no influence on teenage students’ levels of complexity thinking competence in their explanations of climate change for themselves and humanity in general. The first group of emotions (i.e., angry, sad, helpless, insecure, worried and inspired to act ) was associated with higher levels of complexity thinking competence in participants’ answers to questions about climate change and, therefore, designated “stimulation”. The opposite was true for the second group (i.e., apathetic, annoyed, and hopeful ), which diminished the level of complexity thinking competence in responses and, therefore, designated “attenuation”. Future studies are encouraged to draw on the emotion measures developed for this study to replicate and advance this study’s findings. Educationists are urged to pay greater attention to emotions in climate change education.