Environmental awareness and attitudes of student teachers: an empirical research

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to assess the awareness and attitudes of student teachers in Turkey. The relationship between the student teachers' attitudes and their gender, academic major, grade level, geographical region and socioeconomic status (level of family income, their parents' education level and occupation, residence) was evaluated with an instrument developed by the researcher. The present descriptive study was carried out at the University of Adiyaman in Turkey, Faculty of Education on 830 Subjects. A 30-item Likert-type questionnaire containing four dimensions (awareness of environmental issues-AEI, awareness of individual responsibility-AIR, general attitudes towards environmental problems-GAEP and general attitudes towards environmental solutions-GAES) was developed to measure student teachers' environmental attitudes by the researcher. Results of T-test and ANOVA showed that the female elementary student teachers in the last year of an instruction programme who have less than three brothers and sisters with high socioeconomic level (student teachers' income level of family, father's job and education, mother's job, living residence) living in Marmara Region had more positive attitudes towards the four dimensions of environmental attitude than the other student teachers.