Online Supplementary Material A: Instructor's guide

Supplementary Material for Chapter 19

Everything Cannot Be Equal: Ranking Priorities and Revealing Worldviews to Guide Watershed Management

This chapter is published as:

Cutts, B. 2016. Everything Cannot Be Equal: Ranking Priorities and Revealing Worldviews to Guide Watershed Management. In: Byrne L (ed) Learner-Centered Teaching Activities for Environmental and Sustainability Studies. Springer, New York. DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-28543-6_19

Bethany B. Cutts

Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL USA

This file contains the following supplementary material:

  • A: Instructor's guide… beginning on p. 2
  • B: Q-sort statements and student glossary… beginning on p. 11
  • C: Sorting pyramid… beginning on p. 13
  • D: Reflection questions… beginning on p. 14

This document is an extended version of the lesson that appears in the book. It includes additional tools and comments for instructors.

Optional preparatory activity

A possible antecedent to the Q-sort activity is a definition-elicitation assignment. The goal of the assignment is to encourage students to think deeply about how to best operationalize definitions of sustainability to guide action to improve social, environmental, or economic conditions in river basins or other large, multijurisdictional planning arenas. The instructor can create a precursor homework activity that asks students to each submit 10-15 statements and accompanying photographs. The collection of statements then forms the concourse from which the instructor creates a sample designed to capture the breadth of responses. Adding the concourse elicitation activity introduces a new learning objective: formulate an operational definition of water sustainability and articulate it through a series of statements/photographs. Instructors who choose to engage students in the process of creating the concourse, assign students to each take 8-10 photos that represent important water sustainability concepts in the chosen area (e.g. the Upper Mississippi River Basin). Ideally, each student will take his or her own photographs. However, instructors may decide to allow the credited use of pictures from other sources (e.g. internet). The definition-elicitation activity can help to establish the breadth of student knowledge. By doing it before the Q-sort, students start to view the landscape differently and are sometimes surprised when their sustainability proprieties are different from those of other students. Students can send a few phrases to explain each photograph and relate it to sustainability challenges in the river basin.

1. Introduction (3-5 minutes). Introduce the lesson to students, explaining that the goals of this activity are to 1) analyze knowledge, values and motivations about sustainability challenges in the watershed and 2) explore how they relate to priorities for action in context of a diverse community of stakeholders with competing values and priorities.

2. Describe sustainability challenges (5-10 minutes). Explain that the class is going to use a set of statements to understand the complexities of sustainability. Hand out the statements. Each statement should appear on a separate slip of paper. If you are unable to provide the statements on small individual pieces of paper, you may ask students to cut the paper as part of the second step of the activity. Explain where these statements came from. If you use the statements provided with the lesson, they represent the diverse answers that water managers, land use planners, and scientists gave to the question 'What are the sustainability challenges that face the Upper Mississippi River Basin?' (B. Cutts et al. unpublished). The statements represent the breadth of what responses, but might not be exhaustive. They are intended to the diversity of ideas shared rather than focus on the most common statement, or all statements.

Suggested context and instructions about the activity to read to students:

Water is an integral and uniting natural resource. It connects ecosystems, economies, and societies. Determining how to stop, start, or continue particular relationships between humans and water is an important question and one fraught with conflict. Often deciding on priorities for action involves complicated sets of values, beliefs, and knowledge that cannot be separated easily. In this exercise, we ask you to represent your own priorities, values, and motivations to the best of your ability. Through a series of guided steps, you will be asked to rank the statements based on whether or not you agree that it is a top sustainability priority in the river basin. In addition to completing the ranking process, you will be asked a few additional questions that might help explain your views. Then you will discuss your answers and the knowledge and motivations that informed your ratings with others in the class. Right now, you need to read each statement (and cut out each statement, if needed).

The instructor can either provide students with the glossary or consult it to clarify questions about terminology as they arise.

3. The Q-sort process (3-5 minutes). Explain that each student is going to sort the statements to create a personal ranking using a method that is used in real-world sustainability research and management. Explain that Q-sort is a nice compliment to other survey methods because it captures the ways that people think about ideas in relation to one another rather than in isolation. Q-sort and other similar social science methods are key to understanding sustainability challenges because issues can be so intricately linked. A limitation of Q-sort is that the results do not reveal the prevalence of different ways of thinking in the population at large. Explain that Q-sort is a social science method used to get a sense for similarity and differences among people. This is in contrast to most approaches that look for similarities and correlations among variables. Q-sort is a nice complement to other survey methods because it captures the ways that people think about ideas in relation to one another rather than in isolation. Q-sort and other similar social science methods are critical to understanding sustainability challenges because issues are complex and linked. A limitation of Q-sort is that the results do not reveal the prevalence of different ways of thinking in the population at large. Q-sorts can be conducted using photos or text.

Instructors may choose to use Q-Assessor (q-assessor.com; The Epimetrics Group LLC 2014) or other online programs designed to facilitate a Q-sort via the internet and save the data.

4. Rank statements (20-30 minutes). Students will read each statement (supplementary file 3). If applicable, the student will cut out each statement as they read. Then, each student will create three initial piles based on whether they think each statement should be a high sustainability priority or not, or are unsure. Students will record the number of statements in each pile and then further sort statements using the sorting pyramid (supplementary file 2). Students fill in the sorting pyramid beginning at the edges and alternating between the high and low priority sides until they reach the middle. The pre-sorted piles speed the task and the "unsure" pile can be used to fill in any gaps. After they have finished and settled on their rankings, students record the number (1-30) printed on each statement in the box in the sorting pyramid that corresponds to its ranking (A-AD). Students then answer the open-ended questions 1-5. Students answer reflection question 6 after completing the rest of the exercise. These questions are provided in online supplementary file 3 and are designed to elicit their values, motivations, knowledge, and other factors that may have influenced the ultimate ranking. The rationale for these choices demonstrates how each student defines and operationalizes sustainability.

After they have finished and settled on their rankings, students will record the number printed on each statement in the box that corresponds to its ranking. Last, students will answer the open-ended questions printed on the reverse side of the sorting pyramids.The goal is to help students reflect on their own knowledge, values and motivation with regard to their ranking decisions for the statements. This, along with the results of the sorting exercise, will help students identify the basic groupings of priorities and the underlying rationale that led to those priorities for the class as a whole.

The narrative below can be used as instructions.

Read to the students:

Step 1. Presorting. Read at each statement and decide if you think that it is a high priority for sustainability in the watershed. Categorize it based on whether you think that it is (a) a high priority for sustainability, (b) are neutral or unsure, or (c) a low priority for sustainability. The relative size of each pile does not matter. Choosing "low priority" does not necessarily mean that the idea is not important, just that it is not essential. Review your choices. You may reassign statements if you would like. When you are ready, count the number of statements in each pile and record that number on your interview sheet. Let me know and we can proceed to the next step.

Step 2. Sorting. Sort each statement from one of the three general categories into the grid based on the degree to which you feel the statement qualifies. First, identify the statement you think is most important to sustainability in the watershed. These are statements from the "high priority" pile you created in stage one. Place the top priority in the box labelled "A" on the far left of the sorting pyramid. Second, fill in the statement from the "low priority" pile that you feel you feel is least important to sustainability in the watershed. Assign this to the box labelled "AD" at the "lowest priority" end of the sorting pyramid. Continue filling in from the outside, to the middle, alternately adding statements from the "high priority" pile to the left side and the "low priority" pile to the right side of the sorting pyramid. If you run out of statements in either the "high priority" and/or "low priority" pile, select statements from the neutral pile to continue to fill in the pyramid. While the column you choose matters, the row for each statement does not. That is, since box B and C are in the same column, they are roughly of equivalent importance in the sort. When placed in the sorting pyramid, the statements from either the "high priority" or the "low priority" pile might spill over onto the other side of the sort. That is fine. You want to find the best relative ranking for each statement. When you have completed the sort, you can review and reorganize your answers. Record the number assigned to each statement in its sorting pyramid location. (Note: if students are having trouble making decisions, instructors may suggest that student place issues that seem trivial and/or issues that seem impractical at a watershed scale in the "low priority" pile.)

Step 3. Interview. When you have recorded your sort, answer reflection questions 1-5 that appear on the back of the sorting pyramid (Online supplement 3). (Note: students answer the open-ended questions to elicit their values, motivations, knowledge, and other factors that may have influenced the ultimate ranking. The rationale for these choices demonstrates how each student defines and operationalizes sustainability.)

1. What was the hardest thing about completing this ranking?

2. What did you select as the most important issue? Why?

3. When you were thinking about sustainability, how were you defining it for yourself?

4. Thinking back over all the statements, were any of them confusing or hard to address? Why?

5. What elements of your background and interests do you think may have influenced your decisions (for example, childhood, jobs, coursework, current events or hobbies)?

5. Compare and contrast results (10-20 minutes). This is intended to replicate the principle components analysis researchers would use to group similar responses.

  • Option 1. With a small class that meets in a classroom that is easy to move around in, students can interact with each other to form groups based on the similarity of their Q-sort. Students begin by finding another student that shares at least one of their top three priorities. Pairs of students can then approach each other and, using their top three priorities, decide if they should merge and create a foursome, remain in their original twosomes, or switch partners to maximize similarity. Students continue until they are satisfied with their groupings, but before they collapse to form one giant group (3-4 groups is typical). Ask students to move around the room and, using their sorting pyramids, create groups based on the similarities of their ranking results. Students should interact with as many peers as possible before establishing groups so that they are aware of the range of approaches to ranking. Instructors may choose to tell students that they are, in essence, performing a very informal version of the principal components analysis that would normally be used to analyze the pyramids.
  • Option 2. In a large class, or one where movement is restricted, the instructor can ask students to share with two other students sitting nearby. Then, the instructor can call on a student to share his or her top ranking and general rationale for giving those statements a high priority. The instructor can ask students to raise their hand if their ranking generally agrees with the one shared by the student and record the number who agree. The instructor can then ask for someone who did not agree to share his or her ranking and rationale, continuing until nearly all the students are included in one of the groups.

6. Reconvene and discuss(10-20 minutes). Ask students to share the factors that influences and experiences as they decided how to form and define their groups. The goal of the discussion is to highlight the differences in knowledge (what, why, and how) that differentiate groups. With respect to sustainability, it is virtually impossible for any single individual to achieve complete knowledge and therefor communication. Considering and including alternative knowledge types is an important part of anticipating trade-offs associated policy decisions.

Questions to guide discussion include those distributed to students (Reflection Questions 1-5) as well as those below:

  1. What are patterns in the similarities and differences of your classmates’ rankings compared to yours?
  2. Why do people have different priorities?
  3. Did you learn anything new about the watershed by talking with other students a watershed because of the priority rankings of other students outside their groups?
  4. Why do the differences in the priorities matter? How does it change progress toward sustainability?
  5. If you were leading stakeholders through an activity like this, what would you do to next to develop trust and explore opportunities for collaboration?

The goal of the discussion is to highlight the differences in knowledge (what, why, and how), values, and motivation (what, why, and how) explains patterns of similarity and difference in the sorting results across students. Even without substantial background preparation, students are likely to have life experiences that led them to make inferences about the relative priority assigned each statement. These values, beliefs, and experiences provide context and weight to information and facts. The instructors may choose to discuss how Meo et al. (2002) used Q-sort as an example of its application to other water-management scenarios.

Additional probing questions could include:

  • How do you think that the definitions of sustainability that people used in the sort differ?
  • What did you learn about the role of your own experiences, interests, and ideas about sustainability through the Q-sort?
  • Did you learn anything new about the ecological, social, or economic conditions of the river basin by talking about the rankings with other students?
  • Were important issues missing from the ranking?
  • What does it mean if scientists from different disciplines create radically different sorting outcomes?
  • What are the consequences of differences in definitions between key stakeholder groups, for example, land planners and water managers?
  • Are there priorities that are in conflict – where addressing one priority absolutely precludes opportunities to meet another?

In the author’s experiences, student priorities differ depending on student characteristics. Factors that contribute to similarities in ranking results often include shared ecocentric or anthropocentric perspectives; characteristics of the students like previous academic experience, or gender; a shared belief that are particular set of statements provide the best set of positive externalities (high impact); and/or a shared belief that a particular set of statements can create positive outcomes at the watershed scale (high feasibility).