The Use of New Ecological Paradigm Scale Among Pre-Service Primary Teachers: Limits and Possibilities (original) (raw)
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A2. Development of Attitude Scale in the Concept of Environmental Education
The rapid disappearance of natural resources and residential areas as a result of industrial and technological improvements necessitated precautions to be taken in this issue. In fact, the idea of sustainable development arose within this context. The notion of sustainable development, which started to gain importance specifically after the mid-1980s, was defined as "the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" in the 1987 Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. Throughout time, this idea promptly tended towards the education of sustainable environment and became the contemporary dominant view. Therefore, environmental education is considered as a significant mean in the sustainable development. Within this context, the aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable scale in order to determine teacher candidates' attitudes in relation to environment in the framework of sustainable environmental education. A pilot study was conducted with 400 teacher candidates who are studying in the programs of Social Sciences Education, Elementary Science Education and Primary Education in the Department of Elementary Education at the Ahi Evran University. As a result of exploratory factor analysis, it was found that the scale has 6 factors and the internal consistency coefficient is 0.904.
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A first version of an instrument to assess science conceptual knowledge in pre-service primary teachers is elaborated and validated. A multiple-choice test with 50 items was proposed. Four content areas of science from the curriculum of Primary Education in Spain were considered: natural environment and its conservation, biological diversity, health education and the human body, matter and energy. A sample of 83 pre-service teachers from a spanish university participated in the statistical validation process. Both external consistency (Test-Retest correlation) and internal consistency (Kurder-Richardson's 20th formula) were above 0.7. Item difficulty and discrimination indices were analysed as well as distractor election. Although some adjustments should be made, indicators suggest that the instrument is appropriate for its purpose. Furthermore, remarkable results about participants' poor conceptual mastery and misconceptions were identified. Implications of these findings are discussed.
Investigation of Pre-Service Science Teachers’ Attitudes towards Sustainable Environmental Education
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The purpose of the current study is to investigate pre-service science teachers' sustainable environmental education attitudes and the factors affecting them in terms of some variables (gender and grade level). The study group of the current research is comprised of 154 pre-service teachers attending the Department of Science Education in the Faculty of Education of Aksaray University. The study employed the descriptive survey method, one of the qualitative research methods. As the data collection tool, "The Sustainable Environmental Education Attitude Scale" developed by Afacan and Demirci Güler (2011) was used in the study. The Cronbach alpha reliability of the scale was calculated to be α=.93. In the statistical analysis of the data, SPSS was used. In the analysis of the data, Independent Samples t-Test and One Way ANOVA were run. The analysis results revealed that sustainable environmental education attitudes frequency of the pre-service teachers is at the medium level. It was also found that the sustainable environmental education attitudes of the pre-service teachers do not vary significantly by gender; yet, they were found to be varying significantly depending on the grade level variable. It can be suggested that further research can attempt to determine the attitudes of pre-service teachers from different branches and to analyze different factors affecting sustainable environmental education attitude.
Investigation of Pre-Service Science Teachers' Behavior towards Sustainable Environmental Education
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The purpose of this study is to investigate pre-service science teachers’ sustainable environmental education behaviour and the factors affecting them in terms of some variables (gender and grade level). The study group of the current research is comprised of 206 pre-service teachers attending the Department of Science Education in the Faculty of Education of Kırsehir Ahi Evran University. The study employed the descriptive survey method, one of the quantitative research methods. As the data collection tool, “The Sustainable Environmental Education Behavior Scale” developed by Demirci Güler and Afacan (2012) was used in the study. The calculated Cronbach alpha value of the scale was found to be α=0.90. In the statistical analysis of the data, SPSS was used. In the analysis of the data, Independent Samples tTest and One Way ANOVA were run. It was found that the pre-service science teachers’ scores of behavior towards sustainable environmental education do not vary significantly by gender. In addition, a significant difference was found between the 2nd and 3rd grade pre-service science teachers’ average scores in favor of 2nd grade in the Environment-Friendly and Recyclable Products sub-factor of the scale.