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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 (2014) 4357 – 4361

5th World Conference on Educational Sciences - WCES 2013

An assessment of pre-service teachers' attitudes toward books on

environment and, relationship between attitudes and environmental
behaviours; environmental thinking

Çetin Tan *
Siirt University, Faculty Of Education, 56100, Siirt, Turkey

Abstract

Environmental education is of great importance in the prevention of environmental issues and creating a healthy environment For
this reason, the factors that play a role in the formation of primary school teachers' attitudes toward the environment need to be
studied in depth. In this study, primary school teachers' attitudes towards reading books on environmental issues and their
environmental behaviors and thinking have been investigated. The "Environmental Attitude Scale" developed by Uzun ve
Sağlam (2006) and "Attitudes towards reading books on environmental issues” developed by Kahyaoğlu (2010) scale were used.
16:00 SPSS packet program was utilized to analyze the data. In this study, teachers' attitudes towards reading books are analyzed
in light of the three variables: (i) programs or majors they are attending, (ii) gender and (iii) types of high schools they have
graduated. The results show that student teachers' attitudes towards reading books on environmental issues show significant
variances across gender and the program type, but no significant variance was found in relation to type of high school.

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© 2013 Theand peer review
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BY-NC-ND license.
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Published by responsibility
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AllAcademic World Education and Research Center.
rights reserved
Keywords: Environmental education, attitude towards environment, reading books, pre-service teachers

1. Introduction

In our age, socio-economic, scientific and technological developments have dramatically altered both
individuals’ daily habits and the environmental conditions. The changes have particularly been at an unprecented
rate in that natural events become inseparable from people’s daily routine activities related to their interaction with
biosphere. We can claim that environmental problems, whether deliberate or by an oversight, have paved the way
for substantial, accumulative environmental damages at a global scale.
Damages as a result of human impact on the environment at first largely went unnoticed due to the nature’s
ability to renew itself. However, there is a consensus that threshold for environment to sustain and renew itself in
time had repeatedly been passed, so public opinion, beginning in 1970s, spearheaded by experts who were
discontent with changes in environment, turned attention to understanding and solving environmental problems. As
a result, people started to become curious and take action toward solving the issues affecting them in their
immediate sorroundings (Keleş & Hamamcı, 1997; Dilek, 2008).
In other words, the universality of the understanding of the global environmental problems caused by human
impact has brought about environmental conciousness. Previously simply seen as water and air pollution and toxic

* Çetin TAN. E-mail address: cettan889@hotmail.com

1877-0428 © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.946
4358 Çetin Tan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 (2014) 4357 – 4361

waste, environmental problems become dire threats with the thinning of ozone layer, global climate change and the
extinction of biological diversity. Human impact is the main source of environmental problems while humans are
also the answer to solving these problems (Bradley, Waliczek ve Zajicek, 1999).
Changes in environmental behavior also go hand in hand with knowledge, attitudes changes. In this context,
environmental education must be considered as the most effective way to solve these problems (Erten, 2003; Uzun
& Sağlam, 2006).
The need for environmental education for the betterment of humans is more urgen than ever in that damages to
environmental would have a detrimental effect on people’s daily life. For this reason, environmental education
should have a prominent place in school curriculum (Ilgar, 2007). By creating an environmental awareness for an
individual or society as a whole, solutions to environmental problems could be solved (Erantay & Erdoğan, 2009).
There are many definitions of environmental education. Atasoy (2006) defines environmental education’s
mission as educating citizens who are aware of these issues with sensitivity and interest in local, regional, national,
and global problems. Erten (2004) views environmental education for the protection of the environment attitudes,
values, knowledge and skills development, eco-friendly behaviors. Moseley (2000) defines environmental education
as a life-long interdisciplinary approach contributing to the solution of current environmental problems, with the
goal of creating a world population who is responsible for the things they have done to the environment.
When all definitions are taken together, on the one hand with environmental education environmental awareness
is thought to be important, which aims encouage people to be actively participate in the solution of problems as
responsible individuals (Özdemir, 2007). In this process, the attitudes of individuals come to the fore. Because
attitude is one of the most important determinants of human behaviors. Individuals' attitudes, love, hatred for each
other significantly affect the behavior of them (Kağıtçıbaşı, 1999, Morgan, 1991). Attitudes have important
important feature: they last long period of time. They include cognitive, emotional and behavioral forms. In this
regard, measurement of attitudes and the extent of them situation are desirable in many areas of scientific studies
(Erkuş, 2003). Attitudes give direction to the individual's behavior that can lead to bias in the decision making
process (Ülgen, 1994). There are many factors that play a role in the formation of attitudes (Susar Kırmızı, 2012:
2356).
This study aims to evaluate pre-service teachers' attitudes towards reading books on the environment and the
relationship between environmental behavior and thinking. In light of the findings, this study is thought to have
contributed to the environmental education and its place in education.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

The study was conducted at Siirt University in Turkey. Participants were 293 prospective teachers who were
attending at elementary department in faculty of education.

2.2. Data collection

“Attitudes toward reading environmental books” was used and administered top re-service teachers as data data
collection instrument developed by Kahyaoğlu (2011). The scale for the instrument is 5 type Likert Scale consisting
of 20 items. Reliability for the scale is .87 while the cronbach alpha reliability is .93. The Likert 5 type
“Environmental Attitudes” scale developed by Uzun and Sağlam (2006) was used to investigate environmental
attitudes (13 items) and environmental thinking (14 items). This scale’s cronbach alpha reliability is .89 and
environmental thinking is .79.
 Çetin Tan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 (2014) 4357 – 4361 4359

2.3. Data analysis

Mean, standard deviation and t-test analysis were conducted to determine preservice teachers’ attitudes toward
reading environment books, their environmental attitudes and environmental thinking. To determine the correlation
between attitudes toward reading books and environmental thinking, Pearson correlation coefficient was utilized for
the study.

3. Findings

The data for relationship between preservice teachers’ environmental attitudes, environmental thinking and
attitudes toward reading books are presented below:

Table-1. The descriptive statistics for pre-service teachers' attitudes towards reading books related to the environment and environmental
behaviour and thinking

N Χ SD
Attitudes toward reading books on environment 293 2.13 .732
Environmental behavior 293 3.05 .768
Environmental thinking 293 3.80 .598

As can be seen in Table 1, the mean for preservice teachers’ attitudes toward books is 2.13 and Standard
deviation is .732, the mean for environmental behaviour is 3.05; the mean for environmental thinking is 3.80 and
Standard deviation is .598. İt could be said that preservice teachers’ attitudes toward books are low, whereas their
environmental behaviour and environmental thinking numbers are higher.

Table-2. The correlation between pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward reading books and environmental behaviour and thinking

Environmental behaviour Environmental thinking

r .438** -.318***
Attitudes toward reading books
on environment p .000 .000
n 293 293
***p< .01

In table two, we see that correlation between teachers attitudes toward reading books and their behaviors are in
the positive direction(r= .438; p< .01), while there is a negative and significant correlation between attitudes toward
book and environmental thinking (r= -.318; p<.01).
Table-3. Mean, standard deviation and t-test results for gender and teachers’ attitudes toward books, environmental behaviour; environmental
thinking

Gender N Χ SD t p
F 162 1.97 .637
Attitudes toward reading books on environment -4.103 .000***
M 131 2.32 .797
F 162 2.97 .729
Environmental behaviour -2.152 .032**
M 131 3.16 .805
F 162 3.84 .513
Environmental thinking 1.382 .168*
M 131 3.75 .687
*p<.05; **p<.05; ***p< .01

As can be seen in Table 3, there are a significant variances between gender and attitudes toward books (t291= -
4.103; p<.01) and between gender and environmental behaviours (t291= -2.152; p<.05), while, on the other hand,
there is no significant variance between gender and environmental thinking (t291= 1.382; p>.05).
4360 Çetin Tan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 (2014) 4357 – 4361

Table-4. Mean, standard deviation and t-test results for program type and teachers’ attitudes toward books, environmental behaviour;
environmental thinking

Major N Χ SD t p
Attitudes toward books on Elementary Education 180 2.15 .772
.750 .454*
environment Science Education 113 2.09 .667
Elementary Education 3.16 .779
Environmental behaviors 3.113 .002**
Science Education 2.88 .721
Elementary Education 3.83 .633
Environmental thinking 1.081 .281*
Science Education 3.75 .537
*p<.01; **p>.05

As can be seen in table 4, there is no significant variance between their majors and their attitudes toward books
(t291= -.750; p>.05) and environmental thinking, while there is a significant variance between their majors and
environmental behaviours (t291= 1.081; p>.05).

Table-5. Mean, standard deviation and t-test results for interest in environmental issues and their attitudes toward books, environmental behavior;
environmental thinking

Interest in environmental issues or

N Χ SD t p
trends
Attitudes toward books on Yes 183 2.37 .773
-4.498 .000***
environment No 109 1.98 .671
Yes 183 2.78 .673
Environmental thinking -8.642 .000***
No 109 3.50 .707
Yes 183 3.78 .654
Environmental behaviour .518 .605*
No 109 3.81 .565
*p<.05; ***p<.01

As can be seen in Table 5, there is significant variance between following the trends in environment and their
attitudes toward books(t290= -4.498; p<.01) and environmental behaviour (t290= -8.642; p<.01). However, there is no
significant variance between trends and environmental thinking(t290= 3.113; p<.05).

4. Discussion

Pre-service teachers in general have environmental consciousness and behavior while environmental thinking
score has higher than the other two. According to Saracaloğlu, Bozkurt and Serin (2003); McNinch and Steelman
(1990); Olsen and Gillis (1983), pre-service teachers have negative attitudes toward reading books with
environmental content. This finding suggests that efforts for encouraging them to read books are not enough.
Environmental behaviour and reading books about environment are positively correlated. İn other words, the
more they change their environmental behaviour the more they tend to show interest to read books regarding
environment. But there is no significant correlation between environmetal thinking and reading books in that
environmetal thinking does not necessarily turn into changes in environmental attitudes.
Pre-service science teachers environmental attitudes are higher than pre-service elementary school teachers.This
could be interpreted in two ways. First, number of courses related to environment in science education program is
higher than those in elementary school program and these courses spur pre-service teachers to have a positive
attitudes toward environment. Bahar (2000) points out the differences in environmental attitudes between students
who take courses and those do not take environment courses. In addition, Pre-service teachers who closely follow
scientific development tend to change their environmental behaviours as well (Esgin & Karadağ, 2000).
In the light of the data obtained The following suggestions could be made:
• Reading is an important habit to develop starting with primary school level. All levels of education from
primary school onward efforts should be directed toward the development of reading is suggested.
• In-service training and conferences for pre-service teachers could be important tools to encourage reading
books on environment.
 Çetin Tan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 (2014) 4357 – 4361 4361

• Environmental attitudes consist of knowledge and reflection of that knowledge as behavior. Therefore,
environmental education should aim to change environmental behaviors as well. To this end, organizing
camping involving teachers, pre-service teachers, organizing project competions, and cooperation with
NGOs could he helpful for the heightened sensitivity to environmental issues and environmental education.

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