Nature-based extreme sports are often framed through sensation seeking, thrill, and voluntary exposure to risk, yet this framing can obscure the meanings participants attach to prolonged engagement with demanding natural environments. This study explored how experienced South African participants interpreted the relationship between nature-based extreme sport participation and eco-sensitivity. In this article, eco-sensitivity refers to participants' reported environmental attention, affective connection with nature, recognition of ecological dependence, concern about degradation, and efforts to reduce personal impact. A qualitative design using interpretative phenomenological analysis was applied to semi-structured interviews conducted between 29 April and 4 July 2019 with 10 experienced participants, five men and five women, who represented 11 nature-based extreme sport activities and reported two to 22 years of experience. Four interconnected themes were identified: risk as a managed component of participation; connection rather than conquest; sensory sensitivity and experiences consistent with mindfulness and flow; and eco-sensitivity and self-reported pro-environmental orientation. Participants described risk as something to calculate and manage through competence, preparation, and situational judgement. They also described respect for natural forces, heightened bodily and environmental attention, and a stronger sense of ecological dependence. Reported pro-environmental practices were self-reported and were not independently observed. The findings provide an interpretive account of how participants made sense of environmental meanings within prolonged outdoor sport involvement. They do not establish a causal developmental mechanism. The results suggest propositions for athlete education, outdoor recreation management, environmental learning, and future longitudinal research. Keywords: eco-sensitivity; extreme sport; interpretative phenomenological analysis; nature connectedness; pro-environmental behaviour; risk management.
This study examined how scientific and technological literacy relate to self-reported pro-environmental behavior through the mediating role of 21st-century skills among 578 undergraduate Biology Education students from 16 universities in Eastern Indonesia. Drawing on Social Cognitive Theory and the Action Competence Framework, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication were conceptualized as an integrated competence-enactment mechanism linking literacy to behavioral tendencies. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire and analyzed using PLS-SEM with SmartPLS 4. The 21st-century skills construct was modeled as a second-order mediating variable using the disjoint two-stage approach. The measurement model confirmed satisfactory reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. The structural model showed that scientific literacy and technological literacy significantly predicted 21st-century skills, which emerged as the strongest predictor of self-reported pro-environmental behavior. Scientific literacy retained a small but significant direct effect, indicating complementary partial mediation, whereas technological literacy showed no significant direct effect, indicating indirect-only mediation. The mediated model explained 65.1% of the variance in pro-environmental behavior, compared with 50.6% in the direct-effect model. These findings demonstrate that 21st-century skills function as the key mediating mechanism through which literacy competencies are transformed into environmental behavioral tendencies and support the integration of scientific understanding, purposeful technology use, and action-oriented 4C learning in Biology Education curricula.
این مطالعه به بررسی ارتباط سواد علمی و سواد فناورانه با رفتارهای زیست‌محیطی خودگزارش‌شده از طریق نقش میانجی‌گری مهارت‌های قرن بیست‌ویکم در میان ۵۷۸ دانشجوی کارشناسی آموزش زیست‌شناسی از ۱۶ دانشگاه در شرق اندونزی پرداخت. با بهره‌گیری از نظریه شناخت اجتماعی و چارچوب شایستگی کنش، خلاقیت، تفکر انتقادی، همکاری و ارتباط به‌عنوان یک سازوکار یکپارچه اجراکننده شایستگی که سواد را به گرایش‌های رفتاری پیوند می‌دهد، مفهوم‌سازی شدند. داده‌ها با استفاده از پرسشنامه ساختاریافته گردآوری و با روش مدل‌سازی معادلات ساختاری حداقل مربعات جزئی (PLS-SEM) با نرم‌افزار SmartPLS 4 تحلیل شدند. سازه مهارت‌های قرن بیست‌ویکم به‌عنوان متغیر میانجی مرتبه دوم با رویکرد دو مرحله‌ای مجزا مدل‌سازی شد. مدل اندازه‌گیری، پایایی رضایت‌بخش، روایی همگرا و روایی واگرا را تأیید کرد. مدل ساختاری نشان داد که سواد علمی و سواد فناورانه پیش‌بینی‌کننده معنادار مهارت‌های قرن بیست‌ویکم هستند و این مهارت‌ها به‌عنوان قوی‌ترین پیش‌بین رفتار زیست‌محیطی خودگزارش‌شده ظاهر شدند. سواد علمی همچنان اثر مستقیم کوچک اما معناداری را حفظ کرد که نشان‌دهنده میانجی‌گری جزئی مکمل است، در حالی که سواد فناورانه اثر مستقیم معناداری نشان نداد و صرفاً میانجی‌گری غیرمستقیم را نشان داد. مدل میانجی‌گری شده ۶۵/۱٪ از واریانس رفتار زیست‌محیطی را تبیین کرد، در حالی که مدل اثر مستقیم ۵۰/۶٪ را تبیین نمود. این یافته‌ها نشان می‌دهند که مهارت‌های قرن بیست‌ویکم به‌عنوان سازوکار میانجی کلیدی عمل می‌کنند که از طریق آن شایستگی‌های سواد به گرایش‌های رفتاری زیست‌محیطی تبدیل می‌شوند و از ادغام درک علمی، استفاده هدفمند از فناوری و یادگیری کنش‌محور 4C در برنامه‌های درسی آموزش زیست‌شناسی حمایت می‌کنند.
