Pre-Service Preschool Teachers’ Attitudes and Behaviors Related to Environmental Problems

Abstract

This survey-based quantitative study of attitudes and behaviors related to environmental problems was based on a random sample of 1,098 pre-service preschool teachers in seven public universities, one from each of the seven geographical regions of Turkey. All the respondents were in their third or fourth year of undergraduate study in a faculty of education; 942 were female and 156 male. The
Attitude Scale for Environmental Problems (Güven, 2013) and the Behavior Scale for Environmental Problems (Güven & Aydoğdu, 2012) were used as data-collection tools, and the data analyzed using the Statistics package program. While the participants’ attitudes towards environmental problems differed significantly by gender, year of university study, and grade point average, no meaningful differences were associated with their ages, current academic program (normal vs. evening education) or type of high school attended. Their behaviors related to environmental problems, on the other hand, exhibited significant differences according to gender and, high-school type, but none of the other four background variables. There was also a significant positive correlation between the participants’ attitude scores and their behavior scores.