AI for Qualitative Analysis of Climate Change Acceptance

According to the PLoS One study by Duke and Holt (published August 25, 2026), the Delphi process produced two defensible definitions of climate change acceptance for undergraduate science students and highlighted when to use each definition.

• A scoping review between October 2023 and February 2024 identified 523 articles and extracted 3, 089 items measuring climate change acceptance, of which 2, 402 items were unique, according to Duke and Holt in PLoS One (published August 25, 2026).
• Duke and Holt reported engaging 210 experts and stakeholders across four iterative Delphi rounds (data collection April 2024–July 2025) and reached stability in responses by Round 4, according to the PLoS One article.
• The study concluded two final definitions: the Anthropogenic + Mechanistic Definition, "Climate change is happening, average temperatures and greenhouse gases are increasing globally, and human behaviors are causing it, " and the simpler Anthropogenic Definition, "Climate change is happening and human behaviors are causing it, " (Duke and Holt, PLoS One, published August 25, 2026).
• Round-level agreement in the study varied: in Round 2, 50.9% (n = 29) selected the longer definition; in Round 3, 69% (n = 18) selected it; and in Round 4, 64% (n = 70) selected the simpler definition, as reported in PLoS One.

The PLoS One study by Duke and Holt (published August 25, 2026) used a mixed-methods Delphi approach to define climate change acceptance specifically for undergraduate science students.

According to Duke and Holt in PLoS One, the research combined a scoping review (Oct 2023–Feb 2024), a 15-item pilot survey of 15 undergraduate students in April 2024, and four rounds of interviews and surveys (April 2024–July 2025) with educators and stakeholders to achieve consensus.

According to the authors in PLoS One, the team distilled 3, 089 instrument items from 523 articles into a preliminary framework of 14 constructs, then iteratively reduced definitions through educator feedback until two stable, population-specific definitions remained.

The PLoS One article reports that expert rationale showed bipolarity of opinion and learning-progression considerations, which is why the authors retained both definitions rather than forcing a single consensus.

For educators: choose the Anthropogenic Definition for baseline measures or introductory courses and the Anthropogenic + Mechanistic Definition for advanced courses, as recommended by Duke and Holt in PLoS One (published Aug 25, 2026).

For qualitative researchers: the PLoS One study shows that prior instruments are heterogeneous, so you should map existing survey items against the study's 14-construct framework before claiming you measure "acceptance, " according to Duke and Holt.

For assessment designers: the PLoS One authors warn that conflating knowledge and acceptance can bias measures; therefore, define your construct (acceptance vs knowledge) explicitly when you design coding schemes and survey items.

The PLoS One Delphi study (Duke & Holt, published August 25, 2026) established two defensible definitions of climate change acceptance for undergraduate science students and documented the scope and variability of prior instruments.

For qualitative researchers and educators, the pragmatic choice between the Anthropogenic and Anthropogenic + Mechanistic definitions depends on course level and whether you need a knowledge-gated measure, as recommended by Duke and Holt in PLoS One.

If you need an AI-enabled workflow to transcribe, code, and compare acceptance measures at scale, Evidano can map items to the 14-construct framework, produce frequency and cross-segment analyses, and preserve reproducible audit trails (see features).

For hands-on testing, Try Evidano for free to upload transcripts or survey items and run a thematic alignment to the definitions reported in PLoS One (Duke & Holt, 2026).

Quote from a participating educator reported in PLoS One: "it was the most comprehensive" explaining why many experts initially favored the longer definition, and the authors note that simplicity later drove preference toward the shorter definition (Duke & Holt, PLoS One, published Aug 25, 2026).