1. Introduction
Since the Industrial Revolution, the consumption rate of natural resources by humans has rapidly increased, resulting in environmental pollution, declining ecosystem quality, and various social problems. Against this backdrop, the need for environmental education and education for sustainable development has emerged. Through the integration of human resources and other resources at different times as well as both formal and nonformal education systems, people’s comprehensive ability to construct a sustainable society can be cultivated. Historically, the nature of environmental education is its focus on the terrestrial environment; however, to address the dual goals of sustainability and education, environmental education should focus on both land and sea education. In 1988, the United Nations (UN) proposed the Education for Sustainability approach, which concerned the objectives, nature, mission, and content of environmental education. In 1992, the concept of sustainable development was transformed into a concrete action plan, and education was stated to be a key factor in advancing the goal of sustainable development. From the perspective of environmental protection, sustainable development is promoted and people’s ability to solve environmental and developmental problems is enhanced through education. Education is also the key to maintaining the progress and development of human society. Since 2000, the UN has proposed the Millennium Development Goals and Education for Sustainable Development program [
1,
2]. In 2015, the UN announced the Sustainable Development Goals, which comprise 17 core goals for governments and corporations worldwide to achieve sustainable development. The 14th goal states the following: “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.” Therefore, teaching citizens about current marine affairs, ensuring the basic ocean literacy of the next generation, accepting the importance of the ocean, and enhancing the competitiveness of domestic industries are fundamental to environmental education.
In 1982, the UN established its Convention on the Law of the Sea, which regulates the maritime activities of oceanic countries and their maritime rights and provides comprehensive regulations on policy formation, law enactment, and organization establishment [
3]. Following the establishment of the Convention, several countries established maritime policies and regulations and strived to enhance their citizens’ understanding of the ocean, which indicates that most countries value the critical problems pertaining to resource development and environment change. Since 2000, countries have been investigating their citizens’ ocean literacy. To promote the understanding of the importance and value of protecting the ocean, numerous countries have stressed problems pertaining to ocean environments and marine education as well as defined the understanding of these problems as “ocean literacy.” Thus, a person with ocean literacy has the ability to understand the basic principles, fundamentals, and concepts of the ocean; to communicate about the ocean meaningfully; and to make informed and responsible decisions about ocean resources. To this end, ocean literacy can be viewed as a means of incorporating scientific literacy into education; with this, the ability to make socially responsible decisions is acquired. Therefore, cross-region and cross-nation professional communities have distributed various survey instruments to investigate ocean literacy, such as the United States’ International Ocean Literacy Survey and Greece’s Survey of Ocean Literacy and Experience. These surveys have assessed the understanding of ocean literacy principles and the development of relevant concepts among students of various grades, thereby emphasizing that all citizens should understand the importance of the ocean and the necessity of protecting its environments [
4,
5].
The meaning of marine education in Taiwan has evolved from the conventional objective of cultivating marine professionals to the current goal of teaching general education courses containing ocean literacy [
6]. In 2001, the government issued the White Paper on Marine Policy, which declared Taiwan as a “marine country” and promoted marine research and humanistic education. Subsequently, the White Paper on Marine Education Policy released in 2007 implemented the concept of a “marine country” and comprehensively promoted marine development, marine professional cultivation, and marine education enhancement for citizens. Regarding educational policies, marine education topics were implemented in the Grade 1–9 Curriculum Guidelines proposed in 2008. In the Curriculum Guidelines of the 12-Year Basic Education program established in 2019, marine education topics and the importance of each subject were integrated to enable students to learn about the five main learning themes of marine education (i.e., marine leisure, marine society, marine culture, marine science and technology, and marine resources and sustainability), thereby shaping an educational environment that advocates awareness of, love for, and closeness with the ocean. Thus, the government aims to ensure citizens have ocean literacy and promote Taiwan’s synergy in sustainable development as a maritime country [
7,
8,
9,
10,
11].
After ocean literacy curriculum guidelines and textbooks were introduced to address the interdisciplinary learning characteristics of marine education topics, capability indicators and substantive connotations were integrated into marine education. However, such integration requires teachers to be familiar with the teaching content to ensure teaching performance is not hindered, schools’ promotion of ocean literacy is not impeded, and learning outcomes do not stagnate [
12,
13]. Studies have indicated that during teacher training and in each teaching grade, educational institutions generally provide sparse marine education resources for teachers. Furthermore, the degree of marine education integrated in textbooks is unsatisfactory. In senior and vocational high schools that are not marine-related, marine education content accounts for 2–5% of teaching materials. In middle and elementary schools, the proportion is lower than 5%; specifically, these schools’ marine educational content focuses on the beauty of marine environments and the joy of playing at the beach. In middle schools, marine educational content introduces marine life, waves, currents, and pollution [
13,
14,
15]. In summary, a shortage of marine educational resources and limitations on teaching time mean that schools include little content knowledge on ocean literacy. To enable citizens to thoroughly understand the ocean and effectively use ocean resources, developing students’ ocean literacy through formal education, enhancing their overall respect for and protection of the natural environment, and enabling them to perceive that marine and land development are equally crucial problems that warrant discussion.
In response to current changes in society and the arrival of globalization, schools must implement the teaching of ocean-related topics to complement and enhance students’ understanding. In studies on the ocean science literacy of senior and vocational high school students, participants only answered 50% of the questions correctly, indicating that much room for improvement remains [
16,
17]. In recent years, Taiwanese scholars have established connections and formed partnerships with international marine educational communities and employed Chinese versions of surveys to investigate the influence of background variables on students’ ocean literacy. These surveys have assessed students’ understanding of ocean knowledge and encouraged a positive attitude toward acquiring ocean literacy for use in solving life problems [
18,
19,
20]. Currently, marine education has been promoted for much more than 10 years in Taiwan. The aforementioned research results serve as a policy promotion strategy for marine education and ocean literacy in senior and vocational high schools. However, no empirical studies have been conducted on the expected degree of middle school students’ understanding and capabilities pertaining to ocean knowledge and concepts.
Teachers are pivotal in successfully promoting marine education. In particular, how teachers convert marine education curricula into teaching implementation strategies is a determining factor in how effectively marine education can be implemented. In the past, Taiwan’s teacher training process did not provide marine education–related courses. This caused teachers to generally have poor ocean knowledge and concepts and insufficient teaching knowledge for marine education. Schools lacked clear regulations for marine education, resulting in limitations in teachers’ willingness, teaching content, and teaching methods. In addition, domestic studies have revealed that most teachers acknowledge not having graduated from ocean-related programs. Because of a lack of professional marine knowledge and backgrounds, teachers would have had to self-research extracurricular information on ocean knowledge and extend their original teaching designs. Furthermore, teachers were concerned that their poor understanding of and resources for ocean knowledge could result in misconceptions in students. Moreover, teachers were subjected to work adjustments and psychological stresses from their insufficient basic marine knowledge [
12,
21].
This study investigated middle school students’ prior knowledge and concepts on ocean literacy and employed concept map sentences to assess and diagnose students’ misconceptions. This study provided school teachers with practical strategies and support for course development and teaching and teaching resources. Thus, it serves as a reference for school teachers and relevant units concerned with the development of marine education in their course development and teaching designs. To understand the influence of backgrounds on students’ ocean literacy and enhance the learning outcomes of marine education, this study employed propositional concept map sentences to assess students’ marine concepts and determine their misconceptions. This study represents an attempt to achieve the following objectives using propositional concept maps:
To investigate middle school students’ marine concepts.
To assess marine concepts and the literacy of middle school students with different backgrounds.
To diagnose middle school students’ ocean literary and misconceptions.
1.1. Importance of Ocean Literacy
In 1989, UNESCO compiled expert suggestions from the marine science field, science education field, government agencies, educational units, and community education centers. After investigating marine science education, teacher training, and academic research, the organization proposed a direction for marine education. The organization stated that marine science education should develop toward interdisciplinary science, practicality, and professionalism. Subsequently, the organization categorized marine education into professional marine science education—which focuses on marine professional courses, stresses the importance of developing marine professional knowledge, and cultivates marine professionals—and general marine science education, which concerns the general public’s understanding of marine science education and literacy and aims to improve citizens’ awareness and understanding of marine environments, information management, and ecological preservation [
22].
In 1996, the United States published an investigation on the National Science Education Standards and revealed that the course standards and content in each state did not include teaching material content on the ocean, coastal areas, or ocean areas. In addition, reports have indicated that US students and citizens have little knowledge of the ocean, oceanic concepts, aquatic species, and humanistic and cultural subjects. In addition, US citizens have little knowledge of the interactive mechanisms between the climate and the ocean [
23,
24,
25,
26]. In 2002, the US National Marine Educators Association proposed national ocean science education standards with ocean literary as the main theme and established 7 principles and 45 basic concepts. Ocean literary answers the question: “How does the ocean influence you, and how do you influence the ocean?” This emphasizes that citizens are expected to understand the mutual influence between the ocean and humans [
27]. The aforementioned seven principles are as follows: (1) The Earth has one big ocean with many features; (2) the ocean and life in the ocean shape the features of the Earth; (3) the ocean is a major influence on weather and climate; (4) the ocean makes the Earth habitable; (5) the ocean supports great diversity of life and ecosystems; (6) the ocean and humans are inextricably linked; and (7) the ocean is largely unexplored. These principles emphasize the importance and diverse characteristics of the ocean [
28]. Principle 3 corresponds to social equity, principle 4 corresponds to environmental integrity, principle 6 corresponds to sustainability, and principle 7 corresponds to economic prosperity, when compared with sustainable education that emphasizes environmental, social, and economic value [
29,
30,
31].
By adhering to these principles, the US government and citizens actively engage in marine-related courses by providing open-ended learning through elementary school to high school and implementing multimedia interactive courses and concept map design courses to support students in learning marine concepts. These principles also grant junior college students and citizens access to informal learning methods (e.g., short-term experiences, experimental projects, and community education centers), which enable holistic lifelong learning to effectively enhance citizens’ ocean literacy [
28].
Marine education is interdisciplinary and features talent cultivation systems at different educational stages. Despite differences between Taiwan’s marine education problems and the United States’ ocean literacy–based marine science knowledge, interdisciplinary knowledge remains the essence of marine concepts. It supports educators in integrating marine concepts and knowledge in the classroom and outdoors to enable students to learn through experiencing natural environments and ocean areas, thereby enhancing their ocean literacy [
32,
33]. Therefore, Taiwan’s focus on ocean literacy involves ocean-oriented education, which includes learning about the ocean and ocean concepts (cognitive aspect), the use and preservation of ocean environments (technological aspect), and the cultivation of care and appreciation toward the ocean (emotional aspect). Ocean education allows learners to understand their environment, develop positive values, understand how to interact with the ocean, and understand the importance of ocean-related sustainable development.
This information and research revealed the urgent need to improve teachers’ ability to collect, compile, assess, and evaluate marine teaching resources. For teachers to successfully integrate these resources into teaching, their teaching resources and strategies as well as their ability to assess students’ basic abilities are pivotal. Therefore, understanding middle school students’ comprehension of marine concepts and being able to diagnose students’ misconceptions are valuable references for teachers of all grades to design marine-related courses.
1.2. Theory and Evaluation of Concept Maps
Learning involves conceptual change and exploration. Human learning is conducted from cognition. Regarding meaningful learning, US cognitive psychologist David Ausubel posited that new knowledge must be connected to a learner’s prior knowledge and experience to form a greater and broader conceptual framework and become the learner’s prior knowledge for future learning [
34,
35]. Professor Novak from Cornell University, United States, employed the meaningful learning theory of Ausubel and proposed concept mapping as a learning tool to help students learn how to learn [
36]. This tool is used to integrate and hierarchically sort concepts to present their relationships. Through the adoption of propositional descriptions, concept mapping employs a two-dimensional shape to depict and represent the conceptual framework. Subsequently, concept mapping expands each “node” of learning into “areas” of learning and includes all learning concepts in propositions. Through integrating and establishing a hierarchy, concept mapping presents the relationships between concepts, indicates the qualities that are beneficial to learners, and constructs and reconstructs knowledge structures. Concept maps employ a series of propositions to establish meaningful connections between known and new concepts to create an organizational network. Through the map, learners’ knowledge structures and misconceptions can be identified to serve as a reference for assessing their conceptual frameworks [
36,
37].
Piaget stated that learners’ incorrect schema or prior knowledge are incorrect concepts or misconceptions. In general, this refers to learners’ direct viewpoints toward natural phenomena, social events, witnessed events, and the surrounding environment at the start of learning. Before these viewpoints are subjected to challenges, most of the concepts originate from learners’ personal experience, family education, peer influence, read literature, and sociocultural influences [
38]. However, these viewpoints are often commonly proven incorrect by scientific theories. For example, some elementary students believe misconceptions such as that “candlelight spreads further during the night” and “gravity does not exist in a vacuum” [
39]. Therefore, assessing students’ misconceptions is a difficult yet crucial task for teachers. Concept maps are effective teaching tools that can support students by clarifying the relationships between concepts and highlight differences in students’ knowledge [
40]. Therefore, by using concept maps to collect students’ learning history, knowledge, and understanding of a topic, teachers can use the portrayed concept relationships and hierarchical arrangements to diagnose their knowledge structure and misconceptions. This will enable teachers to establish learning motives and encourage students to actively learn correct and meaningful concepts.
Learning is a type of exploration in which individuals’ cognitive structure is constantly assimilated, adjusted, integrated, and changed to include new concepts, which ultimately changes individuals’ original concepts [
41]. During the conceptual change process, students can create concept maps to reconsider and create self-adjustments to their conceptual framework. Early studies on the conceptual framework of science education have revealed the following five types of conceptual change: (1) concept acquisition, in which a learner assimilates new concepts into the preexisting conceptual framework and changes its “quality”; (2) concept restructuring, in which cognitive conflicts are encountered and the learner restructures or differentiates preexisting concepts to accept new knowledge concepts, thereby changing their “quantity”; (3) concept replacement, in which the learner replaces preexisting concepts with new concepts; (4) concept coexistence, in which new and old concepts are included in the learner’s conceptual framework; and (5) concept enhancement, in which the learner’s concepts are enhanced by assimilating and adjusting new and old concepts [
42,
43].
Therefore, students can use concept maps to review their conceptual framework, revise, restructure, assimilate, and adapt to effectively enhance their ability to categorize knowledge, and integrate new knowledge to achieve meaningful learning. In addition, teachers can determine whether students’ concepts are correctly connected and whether their knowledge hierarchy is correctly arranged to understand their learning conditions and detect their knowledge structures and misconceptions. Therefore, concept maps are effective assessment tools for both teachers and students.
1.3. Ocean Literacy Studies
Japan implemented teaching guidance policies across different stages of education and research and also developed additional teaching materials to strengthen students’ ocean literacy, to encourage citizens to love and protect the ocean, elicit human–ocean interactions, and use ocean resources [
44]. Taiwan adopted the holistic educational spirit of the 12-year Basic Education program as a starting point and employed core literacy as the course development principle to nominate marine education as an educational topic, which indicates that ocean literacy encompasses science and social aspects. However, few studies have discussed these topics [
45,
46]. From a scientific aspect, official education systems and place-based courses on geology, chemistry, and biology have included the discussion and development of teaching strategies for ocean literacy [
47,
48,
49]. In Italy, Croatia, and Greece, where 65% of the population live by the Mediterranean Sea, children in grades 3–6 have an intermediate level of knowledge of marine science and most often acquire it through knowledge of the oceans in coastal areas, environmental activities in schools, and television documentaries [
50].
A research survey from the American Association for the Advancement of Science on oceanic and environmental literacy for adults indicated that citizens have a positive attitude toward the ocean. However, they insufficiently understand ocean-related knowledge and concepts and influences on the ecosystem environment, and they also lack awareness of basic environmental ocean literacy. Because of the mutually dependent relationship, the ocean literacy demand of citizens who live near coastal regions should be prioritized [
51]. In addition, an investigation on the ocean literacy and motivation of young adults indicated strong ocean awareness, environmental attitudes and morals regarding the ocean, and an understanding of ocean-related social problems among young adults. The results indicated that young adults’ understanding of ocean knowledge is significantly influenced by their environmental attitudes. Individuals who have personal experiences with the ocean have a greater degree of ocean knowledge [
52]. In addition, college students generally hold misconceptions regarding marine meteorology, marine chemistry, and marine biology and pollution, which indicate their lack of ocean literacy [
53]. Furthermore, the general public does not sufficiently interact with the ocean. Their interaction is generally limited to the tides and waves, and they have an unorganized knowledge structure [
54].
Humans have strived to explore and understand the ocean. Scholars across scientific fields have suggested that misconceptions occur in the learning [
55,
56]. Literature and empirical studies have revealed that concept maps are viable tools for teaching information and concepts. In addition, they can be used to diagnose and assess insufficiencies and misconceptions in students’ prior knowledge. Currently, various aspects of the ocean remain unknown and require exploration. Although students may be familiar with the ocean, misconceptions and incomplete knowledge structures commonly persist in their professional understanding of the ocean. This empirical study employed propositional concept maps to implement and establish fundamental and correct marine concepts, teach applicable knowledge and techniques, and correct misconceptions to cultivate a teaching spirit consisting of ocean literacy.
5. Conclusions
The accuracy, explanation, and proposition structure dimensions were combined to assess the propositional concept map sentences. The full score of each dimension was set as 50 points, under which students’ mean scores in the accuracy, explanation, and proposition structure dimensions were 33.28, 30.86, and 31.60, respectively. In addition, the full total score of the scale was set as 150, under which the students’ mean total score was 95.74. The mean scores of each dimension and the total scale indicated that middle school students’ ocean literacy was at a basic level and had room for improvement. Education can integrate ocean knowledge and concepts into courses to design satisfactory marine educational activities and teaching strategies to enhance students’ overall ocean literacy.
Assessment and analysis of the propositional concept map sentences revealed that students of different grades exhibited differences in ocean literacy. Students in higher grades that had ocean-related courses had a greater breadth and depth of knowledge. Furthermore, a school’s location determined its course development process. Most schools developed courses according to the school’s features, environment, and conditions by integrating neighboring environments, parents in local communities, teacher expertise, and student demands into the course design. Because of their proximity to and engagement with the ocean in their living spaces, instructors in coastal schools can design and integrate ocean-oriented literacy courses. Finally, ocean concepts primarily contain scientific information. Studies have indicated that the science and literacy scores of men were greater than those of women. This result differed from that of the current study. Therefore, future studies are suggested to explore this phenomenon.
The investigation of ocean knowledge sources revealed that students primarily acquired ocean knowledge through visiting museums and watching television programs about the ocean. Although community education centers (e.g., marine education resource center) are a reliable channel to impart knowledge, community centers employ informal courses to teach students ocean knowledge. For example, there are 22 counties in Taiwan, each of which has its own Marine Education Resource Center. Each center conducts a marine education curriculum and promotion for elementary and junior high school students in accordance with the annual theme of World Ocean Day. The results indicated that more participants engaged with ocean knowledge through the media than did those who engaged in ocean knowledge through formal education. However, whether the ocean knowledge transmitted by television programs is accurate remains to be studied. Educators should adjust and enhance the amount of ocean-related content and courses taught in formal education. After propositional concept map sentences were used to assess students’ ocean concepts, the results were compiled, revealing that most students had misconceptions regarding the concept terms “sea level rising,” “Kuroshio current,” and “tsunami.” This indicated that although the students were familiar with these terms, they were not guaranteed to have correct concepts of them. During class, teachers should pay attention to whether students hold misconceptions toward familiar and everyday concept words. In addition, teachers can provide detailed explanations to facilitate students’ understanding to enable them to accumulate learning experiences and develop expertise in ocean concepts and enhance their ocean literacy.
It is proposed that in the future research, ocean literacy can be assessed using longitudinal studies with students of different grades. In addition, background variables can be analyzed in order to understand the ocean literacy performance of students.