The Effects of Argumentation Implementation on Environmental Education Self Efficacy Beliefs and Perspectives According to Environmental Problems

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of argumentation implementation applied in the environmental science course on science teacher candidates’ environmental education self-efficacy beliefs and perspectives according to environmental problems. In this mixed method research study, convergent parallel design was utilized. Quantitative part of this study was based upon one group pretest-posttest design. Qualitative part of this study was based upon holistic case study. The sample of the study consisted of 26 3rd year science teacher candidates in A State University Education Faculty Science Education Department in the spring term of 2013-2014 academic years. The data collection tools were environmental education self-efficacy beliefs scale developed by Ozdemir, Aydın and Vural (2009) and drawings drawn by science teacher candidates to determine their perspectives on environmental problems. The experimental study took 7 weeks (21 hours). The first week involved the acquaintance with the students and briefing them about the study. Also, in this week, an educational plan related to the argumentation implementation was prepared and applied. And this week finally, scales were administered as pretest. The study started in the second week. The study took five weeks as three hours a week. Last week scales were administered as posttest. In quantitative data analysis paired samples t-test was used. For the analysis of qualitative data, categorical analysis technique, one of the content analysis techniques, was used. At the end of the study, it was observed that the science teacher candidates’ self-efficacy beliefs according to environmental education statistically differed in favor of the post-test. In addition, it was also found that, at the end of the study, science teacher candidates' perceptions of environmental problems differed according to their self-efficacy beliefs.