Environmental Knowledge and Attitudes and their Influence on Sustainable Practices among School Communities in Tanzania: A Scoping Review

Abstract

It is widely assumed that fostering positive attitudes and awareness among schools' communities and ultimately more sustainable everyday behaviour, will follow. However, the empirical evidence in this knowledge-attitude-practice pathway in the school community in Tanzania has not been systemically mapped before. The aim of this scoping review was to draw a picture of the current state of the available knowledge and attitudes of school communities in Tanzania and to explore available evidence about links between knowledge, attitudes and sustainable practices. The review was conducted using the methodological approach of Arksey and O'Malley (2005), as adapted by Levac, Colquhoun and O'Brien (2010), and reported following the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (Tricco et al., 2018). After Population-Concept-Context screening, 38 sources of evidence were eligible for a second screening in a structured search, identifying 441 records. When measured directly, ecological literacy and environmental knowledge of school communities in Tanzania is generally moderate to good with one large secondary school assessment recording an average of 75 per cent ecological literacy score, but attitudes towards environmental preservation and utilisation are more varied and influenced significantly by facilitation strategy and quality of the previous training. Fewer sources measure sustainable practice as an actual, observable behaviour than report intentions and/or attitudes towards practice as a proxy indicator of practice. Positive associations between knowledge, attitudes and practice reported where knowledge and attitudes have been measured together, but sample sizes are relatively small and limited to certain areas. The review highlights a need for longitudinal studies on a more diverse sample of school communities across Tanzania to test the knowledge-attitude-practice pathway, which focuses on measuring observed practices, not intention.