Risk Literacy and Environmental Education: Does Exposure to Academic Environmental Education Make a Difference in How Students Perceive Ecological Risks and Evaluate Their Risk Severity?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is well-written and well-organized.
The demonstration is clear and the bibliography extensive and appropriate.
However there are problematic aspects (in terms of conceptual logic) that we would like to point out the authors.
First, The whole paper is based on the theory of the subjective perception of risk: Slovic being one of the most prominent scholars in this field. But in this unconditional focus on Slovic's approach of risks, the authors fails to provide: 1. an account of the other branch of risk assessment, i.e. the realist approach to risk; and 2 a critical or account of the subjective risk theory itself (see https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/8/1331): such a critical account will be needed to qualify both the theoretical background and the empirical results - it will be better if the authors could put some dialectic into the paper to nuance its monofocused approach.
Second, the premise of the paper is the following: "Our study is based on the premise that environment-related academic education, which, by definition, is designed to impart an elementary understanding of environmental problems should generate more informed non-biased ER assessments" But the problem is that such a premise is too un-challenging from the very start. There is nothing special about this claim that will require an extensive demonstration to prove: it is almost commonsensical that better knowledge of environmental issues will induce more awareness about ecological risks.
Third, then there may be a discrepancy between the methodology and the theoretical background - a potential gap that is not sufficiently acknowledged by the authors.
I explain: the method consists in comparing assessments of environmental risks by two different groups of people: "The research students were recruited from two academic, environmental programs (i.e., environmental sciences and EE) and non-EE programs (i.e., exact sciences, social sciences and the humanities) in two different academic institutions. Messages posted on bulletin boards invited students to join a short, 25-30 minute survey in the computer classes in return for ILS 36 (USD 10). The survey topic was presented as "Thoughts and feelings towards environmental problems".
However the theoretical background is subjective risk theory. To quote Piyapong Janmaimool and Tsunemi Watanabe 2014: "The objective approach refers to risk as a product of scientific research conducted based on experiments and scientific methods. In contrast, the subjective approach claims that risk is not solely objective; it varies depending on people’s state of mind influenced by collective experiences, social norms, and uncertainties."
It seems the authors forget that Slovic's theory of risk is a sociological one, and moreover a cultural one. Slovic's idea is that cultures are influencing perception of risks. However in this paper all the socio-cultural factors are absent: no indication about the differences in terms of economic status, political leanings or cultural background of the respondents. The only variable is the difference in terms of academic background: students from environmental programs (i.e., environmental sciences and EE) and non-EE programs (i.e., exact sciences, social sciences and the humanities).
But this difference in academic background, does it really belong to the domain of "subjective perception of risks"? The students trained academically in EE received this training on the basis of a scientific description and analysis of ecological risks. Thus in this case, the subjective approach to risk is used as the theoretical background to assess different responsiveness related to objective information about risks.
So the fact that students from environmental programs demonstrate higher capacity to assess the severity and systematicity of risk as demonstrated by the authors demonstrates only the viability and quality of their curriculum. Indeed it also supports the point made by the authors that "including ER-related issues in academic courses both in EE and non-EE programs" will be beneficial to the public understanding of ER. But if the authors could have demonstrated that such a deeper awareness of risks translate into concrete actions and that the behaviors of EE and non-EE students towards environment is markedly different, it will have been a more relevant point.
Author Response
Please see attached file
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The results of this manuscript can provide important knowledge about handling of risk literacy in environmental education. However, the following points need to be corrected.
[Introduction]
- There are two "1.1".
[methods]
- The EE curriculum taken by the target EE student should be explained in more detail. The curriculum may include elements specific to Israel.
- p.6, l267: It is necessary to explain why multidimensional scaling is used.
[Results]
- Figure 1: What kind of analysis led to the significant difference? In addition, it should explain what each * and NS represent.
Author Response
Please see our responses in the attached document
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
please see the attachment
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see our responses in the attached document
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Necessary modifications have been made in relation to the various aspects, psychological, cultural and realist, of the notion of Risks. Notably the reference to Beck's position is indeed very welcome.
The addition relative to the relation of environmental education to social practice is interesting but perhaps still too theoretical. What will really help to demonstrate the validity of their claims for the authors, though it will be perhaps a really difficult task, will be to assess in which ways the cohort of students trained in EE did practically put into practice their EE training - a comparison between students and non-students of EE, in terms of their actual contributions to the environmental common good, will be a definitive proof of the necessity of integrating EE in the general curriculum.
