Assessing Middle School Students' Polar Literacy

This study analyzed students' polar literacy in an effort to promote polar education based on its high educational value. The polar literacy test items developed for this study consisted of questions about knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs about the polar region, as well as background variables of students. The final test items, which were revised and supplemented several times through the preliminary test, were applied to 323 eighth graders in South Korea. We analyzed the response characteristics of the polar literacy questions for all students. Students were grouped into those with a global citizenship perspective and those with a pragmatic perspective, according to the viewpoint of polar issues and their polar literacy. Analysis showed that the students had a high understanding of climate change and living things in the polar regions, but had a very low understanding of ice, which is a key component of the polar regions. Moreover, they were unable to approach the Earth system thinking when dealing with polar issues. In addition, the global citizenship group had a higher intellectual understanding and deeper sympathy of the polar problem than the pragmatic group. This study is meaningful in that the survey results present a specific direction for future polar education.