Biological conservation of common and familiar animals: The roles of experience, age and gender in children's attitudes towards bats, frogs and raccoons

I address the contemporary dilemma of animals disappearing from the minds and direct experiences of many human beings in Western culture, and the implications of this dilemma for the fields of biological conservation, human ecology and environmental education. The purpose of my research project is to explore Kindergarten and Grade Five children's (N = 177) attitudes towards, and ideas about three common, familiar and wild Canadian animals. I chose bats, frogs and raccoons for comparative purposes as together they represent various points along a continuum of human relationships to other animals. My first hypothesis is that the children's attitudes towards the animals will demonstrate an age-related pattern. The second hypothesis is that the gender of the children will influence the shape of their attitudes. The third hypothesis is that the children's attitudes towards the animals will change significantly in a positive direction after they experience the animals (during the Treatment phase of the experimental design).; Each child produced the following data: (a) interview responses to cognitive, affective and conative questions; and (b) three stories and drawings of a bat, frog and raccoon. The experimental design was a four factor one: Age (2) by Gender (2) by Group. (2) by Animal (3). I used three and four-way repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to analyze the results. The results showed that the Age of the children or Age of the children interacting with Group affected 96% of the statistically significant findings. The gender hypothesis was supported, but only for 19% of the significant variables. The experience of seeing a wild animal did alter the attitudes of Kindergarten and Grade Five Treatment groups in 35% of the significant findings. Thus, Kindergarten and Grade Five Treatment groups in 35% of the significant findings. Thus,{09}all three hypotheses were confirmed. The significant interactions between the Age of the children and their experimental Group question the controversy between human developmental models and environmental experience. Thus, one of my main findings is about the importance of direct experience for positive human relationships with other animals, and the implications of this finding for: (1) transforming science and environmental education; (2) learning natural history; (3) studying the roles of animals in children's development and culture; (4) imagining kinship and storying intersubjectivity; and (5) considering an interspecies bioethics.