An analysis of pre-service teachers' attitudes towards environmental issues in terms of various variables

Abstract

In this study, the attitudes of the pre-service teachers towards environmental issues are analysed by such variables as gender, the department of education, year, department, taking or not taking environmental education course, participating in any environmental activity, being a member of any environmental organization, and the longest duration of residence, respectively. This study is designed in the descriptive survey model, and was conducted in the 2016-2017 academic year. The research sample consists of 316 pre-service teachers who are studying in elementary education and science education programs determined by the use of convenient sampling method. The data were collected with a 20-item "Attitude Scale for Environmental Issues" developed by Saraç and Kan (2015). According to results of this study, it was found that pre-service teachers have high mean scores (X=76.50) about the attitudes of environmental issues. The attitude scores of the pre-service teachers were not significantly different according to gender, department, and the longest duration of residence, whereas there were significant differences according to year, whether or not they took any courses on environment, whether or not they participated in any environmental-related activity, and whether or not they had a membership in any environmental group. Based on the results of the study, it can be proposed to increase the number of applied studies on constructing environmental training courses based on active learning and developing attitudes towards learning and teaching about environmental issues.