Are We Ready to Teach About Climate Change? Increasing Teachers’ Content Knowledge, Self-Efficacy and Motivation Through a Program on Climate Change

Although climate change education is still facing major barriers and challenges for teachers, few studies have investigated their self-efficacy and motivation to teach about climate change. This study investigated the impact of the “Climate in Need” program on its participants’ climate change knowledge, their climate change education self-efficacy, and their motivation to teach about climate change (N = 40). For this, a convergent parallel mixed-methods design, which combined quantitative and qualitative methods, was used: a pre/post survey and focus group interviews. The quantitative analyses showed significant increases in participants’ overall climate change knowledge, although some conceptual confusion persisted despite the program’s intervention. Further, a significant increase in the participants’ self-efficacy was observed, as well as a substantial impact on motivation. These findings indicate that climate-change-focused professional development programs should incorporate activities addressing teachers’ climate change misconceptions with a focus on their conceptual refutation. At the same time, programs should adequately cover action and effectiveness knowledge so that teachers are able to distinguish which mitigative actions have a greater impact. The findings also suggest that climate change education implementation should enable teachers to identify with the climate change topic by integrating it into their teacher identity.