Consensus definitions: climate change acceptance definition

This post explains the two consensus definitions of "climate change acceptance" developed for undergraduate science students and shows how AI-enabled qualitative research tools can accelerate definition-driven instrument design. The primary keyword "climate change acceptance definition" refers to the pair of definitions that Jessica R. Duke and Emily A. Holt published in PLoS One on August 25, 2026: the shorter "Anthropogenic Definition" and the longer "Anthropogenic + Mechanistic Definition". According to Duke and Holt in PLoS One (Aug 25, 2026), the two definitions emerged after a scoping review, a pilot student survey, and four Delphi rounds with educator experts.

Key Takeaways

According to Duke and Holt in PLoS One (published August 25, 2026), a mixed-methods Delphi process produced two valid, context-sensitive definitions of climate change acceptance for undergraduate science students.

In a scoping review conducted between October 2023 and February 2024, Duke and Holt identified 523 relevant articles and extracted 3, 089 measurement items, 2, 402 of which were unique.
Duke and Holt recruited educators and stakeholders across four Delphi rounds between May 2024 and July 2025, with Round 2 totaling 58 participants, Round 3 totaling 26 participants, and Round 4 totaling 111 participants; final consensus favored two definitions rather than a single definition.
By August 25, 2026, Duke and Holt reported two definitions: the concise “Anthropogenic Definition” and the more detailed “Anthropogenic + Mechanistic Definition”, reflecting a bipolarity of expert opinion that may depend on educational context.

What happened and how the Delphi process worked

What happened: Duke and Holt used a mixed-methods Delphi design to derive definitions tailored to undergraduate science students, combining a scoping review, a pilot student survey, and four rounds of educator interviews and surveys.

How it worked: According to Duke and Holt in PLoS One, the team performed a scoping review (Oct 2023–Feb 2024) to generate 14 preliminary constructs, piloted questions with 15 students in April 2024, and ran iterative Delphi rounds from May 2024 to July 2025 with educators in biology, chemistry, and earth and atmospheric science.

How consensus was measured: Duke and Holt reported percent agreement and thematic stability across rounds, citing von der Gracht (recommended practice) and using frequency counts plus qualitative coding to assess stability of responses.

Constraints: Duke and Holt noted demographic homogeneity among expert participants and that the corpus was U.S.-centered, which limits immediate generalizability beyond U.S. undergraduate science populations.

Findings snapshot

Date / Range	Metric	Value	Implication
Oct 2023–Feb 2024	Articles screened in scoping review	523 articles	Provided item pool and 14 preliminary constructs used to draft candidate definitions
Scoping review result	Extracted measurement items	3, 089 items (2, 402 unique)	Demonstrates high instrument heterogeneity in existing literature
Apr 2024	Pilot student participants	15 undergraduate students	Tested interview protocol readability and triangulated student perspectives
May 2024–July 2025	Delphi participants across rounds	Round 2: 58; Round 3: 26; Round 4: 111	Achieved stability and convergence that supported two working definitions
Round 2 (Dec 2024)	Top choice (Anthropogenic + Mechanistic)	50.9% (n = 29)	Majority initially preferred the detailed definition
Round 3 (Feb 2025)	Top choice shift (Anthropogenic + Mechanistic)	69% (n = 18)	Higher preference for including mechanism (temperature & greenhouse gases)
Round 4 (July 2025 conference)	Final preference (Anthropogenic)	64% (n = 70)	Final sample favored the simpler Anthropogenic definition; outcome: two valid definitions

Implications for undergraduate educators and researchers

What this means for instructors: Duke and Holt in PLoS One (Aug 25, 2026) show that choice of definition should map to course goals and student level: use the concise Anthropogenic Definition for baseline acceptance checks and the Anthropogenic + Mechanistic Definition for advanced courses where mechanistic knowledge is expected.

What this means for researchers: Duke and Holt recommend that measurement instruments be aligned to an explicit definition; researchers should not assume interchangeable measures because the scoping review (Oct 2023–Feb 2024) found 2, 402 unique items across 523 articles.

Practical decision rule: According to Duke and Holt, if you measure incoming students or general acceptance, select the Anthropogenic Definition; if you measure disciplinary understanding or post-course outcomes, select the Anthropogenic + Mechanistic Definition.

How Evidano helps researchers apply these consensus definitions

What Evidano is

Evidano is an AI-powered qualitative data analysis platform that helps researchers analyze interviews, open-ended surveys, and documents.

How this maps to the PLoS One study: Duke and Holt’s process required rapid thematic coding of interviews, frequency counts of definition choices, and cross-round stability checks, tasks that AI-enabled qualitative tools can accelerate without sacrificing methodological rigor.

Problem: 2, 402 unique items and inconsistent constructs → Solution: content mapping at scale

Problem: The scoping review reported 2, 402 unique items (Oct 2023–Feb 2024), making manual mapping slow and error-prone; Duke and Holt triangulated constructs across sources to create their codebook.

Solution: Evidano automates ingestion of item banks and interview transcripts, performs thematic clustering and co-occurrence analysis, and produces code→subcode hierarchies that let teams quickly compare candidate items to the two consensus definitions, see Evidano features for capabilities.

Problem: iterative Delphi rounds need stable tracking → Solution: reproducible audit trails

Problem: Delphi processes require tracking percent agreement and qualitative rationales across rounds, as Duke and Holt did across Rounds 2–4.

Solution: Evidano creates versioned analyses and exportable frequency counts so researchers can reproduce percent-agreement tables and attach coded rationales to items for review by panels.

Problem: instrument development and validation → Solution: definition-driven item selection and synthesis

Problem: Duke and Holt caution that instruments developed before defining acceptance may underrepresent the construct.

Solution: Evidano’s AI chat over your documents plus thematic and frequency analyses helps you shortlist candidate items that map to either the Anthropogenic Definition or the Anthropogenic + Mechanistic Definition, accelerating pilot testing and construct validation.

FAQ: climate change acceptance definition

What are the two consensus definitions of climate change acceptance from the PLoS One Delphi study?

Direct answer: Duke and Holt present two definitions labeled the Anthropogenic Definition and the Anthropogenic + Mechanistic Definition.

Supporting detail: According to Duke and Holt in PLoS One (Aug 25, 2026), the Anthropogenic Definition reads "Climate change is happening and human behaviors are causing it, " while the Anthropogenic + Mechanistic Definition reads "Climate change is happening, average temperatures and greenhouse gases are increasing globally, and human behaviors are causing it."

Which definition should I use for a first-year undergraduate survey?

Direct answer: Use the Anthropogenic Definition for first-year or baseline surveys.

Supporting detail: Duke and Holt report that educators favored the concise Anthropogenic Definition as a baseline because it does not require prior mechanistic knowledge and was selected for simplicity by 64% of Round 4 participants (n = 70) according to PLoS One.

Does the Delphi study show mechanistic knowledge increases acceptance?

Direct answer: The study does not claim a causal effect but reports that many educators consider mechanistic knowledge relevant to deeper forms of acceptance.

Supporting detail: Duke and Holt note that some experts conflated knowledge and acceptance and that Round 3 participants (n = 26) preferred the mechanistic definition because it explicitly links greenhouse gases and temperature with human causation.

Can I use existing instruments after these definitions were published?

Direct answer: You can use existing instruments, but you should align them to your chosen definition and reassess content validity.

Supporting detail: Duke and Holt warn that many published instruments were developed without a universal definition and that researchers must critically evaluate whether an instrument maps to either the Anthropogenic or Anthropogenic + Mechanistic Definition before interpreting results.

Conclusion & Next Steps

Duke and Holt’s Delphi study in PLoS One (published August 25, 2026) produces two rigorously derived definitions of climate change acceptance for undergraduate science students, giving educators and researchers explicit targets for measurement.

Researchers should map existing items to one of the two consensus definitions, pilot for content validity, and report the chosen definition when publishing results, as Duke and Holt recommend.

If you want to accelerate that mapping and produce reproducible thematic and frequency analyses across interview transcripts and item banks, use AI-enabled qualitative research tools that preserve audit trails.

Ready to align your instruments to a consensus definition and speed analysis with AI? Try Evidano for free.

Topics

climate change acceptance definition
Delphi climate acceptance undergraduates
climate acceptance definitions PLoS One
AI qualitative analysis for survey design

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