Learning beyond school: ocean connectedness as an affective outcome of informal environmental learning among adults in Taiwan

As environmental education increasingly extends beyond school settings, greater attention is needed to understand how adults develop environmentally meaningful learning through everyday participation, work, and lived experience. In ocean-related contexts, however, empirical work examining how adults’ affective bonds with the ocean are associated with environmental action remains limited, particularly in non-Western island societies. This study conceptualizes ocean connectedness as an affectively oriented outcome of informal environmental learning and examines its relationship with pro-ocean environmental action among adults in Taiwan. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted in November 2024 using an adapted Ocean Connection Scale and single-item measures of ocean contact frequency and the frequency of pro-ocean environmental action; the analytic sample comprised 1,287 adults aged 18 to 65. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the measurement model, and structural equation modeling tested whether ocean connectedness mediated the relationship between ocean contact frequency and environmental action. Ocean connectedness did not differ significantly by age, biological sex, or region of residence; it was associated primarily with ocean contact frequency, which also accounted for the unadjusted differences between occupational groups. Ocean connectedness partially mediated the relationship between ocean contact frequency and pro-ocean environmental action, but the indirect effect was small (β = 0.03, roughly 5% of the total association)—robust to covariate adjustment but sensitive to item scoring—and the direct association predominated. Affective connection therefore appears to be meaningfully associated with ocean contact, yet insufficient to explain action: supporting environmental action is likely to require nurturing connection alongside knowledge, efficacy, and social opportunity.