Rerkrat Pakkantorn.. The learning of a tourism community in information processing through environmental carrying capacity appraisal. Doctoral Degree(Environmental Education). Mahidol University. Mahidol University Library and Knowledge Center. : Mahidol University, 2015.
The learning of a tourism community in information processing through environmental carrying capacity appraisal
Abstract:
Community-based environmental management that is based on empirical information advances the sustainability of community-based tourism management. Hence, it is necessary that tourism communities, in order for them to appreciate the values of the environment, recognize the impacts of tourism on the environment and aspire for the capacity to plan for environmental management and to possess information processing skills. This participatory action research employed a community-improvised process of environmental carrying capacity appraisal as the learning environment in order to (1) innovate an instructional model of information processing for environmental decision by tourism communities, (2) evaluate the effectiveness of community learning through the learning output, and (3) analyze the factors that influence the learning success. Six leaders of the tourism community of Ban Nong Mae Na, Khao Kho District of Phetchabun Province where environmental resources were vulnerable, participated in the research on a voluntary basis. The research reveals the following: (1) Through the research process, the Learn to Make an Informed Environmental Decision or the L-Informed ED instructional model was synthesized, comprising seven major steps of synergizing cooperation to treat collective environmental problems, collating environmental situations based on existing experiences and beliefs, assessing the actual environmental situations with newly acquired information, planning management guidelines for selected environmental problems, appraising the environmental carrying capacity for holistic environmental management planning, putting the plan to a trial use, and adopting the plan and its adaptations according to the changing situations as a collective rule. (2) The evaluation of the participants environmental management plan by experts showed that, following this innovative model, the participants reflected their appreciation of the values of the environment, recognition of the impacts of tourism on the environment and mastery of environmental management planning at a high level (xˉ = 3.50, SD = 0.46 ; xˉ = 3.23, SD = 0.45 and xˉ = 3.00, SD = 0.34 on a four-point scale, respectively). It was observed that the participants practical experience and the information processing developed in the same direction. The more experience they had, the greater their capacity to select information with a greater technical value, instead of speculative information, and to engage in planning in a systematic manner. (3) The factors influential to learning success were classified into two groups. The learning environmental factors include the participants recognition of the benefits of the research activities, the learning interactions among the participants, the continued enthusiastic characteristics of the participants and the learning support roles of the researcher. The information processing learning structural factors include an evaluation on the situational problem, attention to new information, selection of information, thinking, deciding, action and the subsequent meta-cognition that results in the long term tacit declarative, procedural and conditional knowledge of the participants.
Mahidol University. Mahidol University Library and Knowledge Center