Comparison of Teachers and Teacher Candidates in terms of Their Environmental Attitudes

Abstract

It has been aimed to compare the environmental attitudes of teachers and teacher candidates and to present the importance of environmental education in teacher training. The sample of the research includes 605 final year students attending undergraduate programs of pre-school education and child development education in the universities of Konya. Ankara, Afyon, and Denizli provinces during 2008-2009 academic year and 300 pre-school teachers attending National Education Ministry In-service Training Programs conducted in Yalova, Aksaray and Rize provinces during 2008-2009 academic year. "Environmental Attitude Scale" has been used as the data collection tool. According to t-test and MANOVA results, it has been determined that teacher candidates got higher scores than pre-school teachers in terms of the total results of environmental attitude scale, and particularly the sub-factors "Importance of Field Trips in Environmental Education': and "Environmental Conservation Activities". Also, it has been stated that the difference between the scores of teachers and teacher candidates taken from the sub-factors "Requirement of Education for Environmental Problems" and "Environmental Pollution and Conservation" is not significant. In the light of the findings, researchers and practitioners have been provided with suggestions.