Investigation of Primary School Teachers’ Attitudes towards the Environment: Samsun City Case


GÜL S., ÇOBANOĞLU İ. H., AYDOĞMUŞ M., TÜRK H.

Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, vol.37, no.2, pp.139-157, 2018 (Peer-Reviewed Journal) identifier

Abstract

Environment can be defined as a habitat for living things, a source of nutrition, happiness. In other words, environment can be expressed as a common shared area where all living creatures live on Earth. All living creatures can make changes on environment they live in, as well as they are being influenced by various interactions by environment. From this perspective, environment has an important role of creatures’ lives whether they sustain their lives healthier or not. Despite that knowledge, environmental problems are the most important problems facing today's world (Toprak, 2006). Until the Industrial Revolution, environment is the dominant power over all life on Earth. However, with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, this power balance has been controlled by the human (Karabıçak & Armağan, 2004; Şahin, Ünlü, & Ünlü, 2016). This change of power balance to benefit of human has resulted in rapid and unconscious depletion of resources on Earth and beginning of environmental problems (Sever & Yalçınkaya, 2012). In addition, activities which carried out by human lead to environmental pollution and as a result of these activities the ecological balance has been disrupted (Polat & Kırpık, 2013). After the realization of the degradation of ecological balance and understanding that environmental pollution has reached global dimensions, sustainable development and environmental education gained importance (Akçay & Pekel, 2017; Toprak, 2006). Environmental education can be defined as an interdisciplinary approach that aims at creating knowledge, skills, consciousness, and attitudes through education about environmental problems to individuals (Akınoğlu & Sarı, 2009; MNE, 2018). This education is the only way to prevent environmental pollution. Therefore, it is important for individuals to participate in environmental education process in a qualified and planned way. Although environmental education is a long process from birth to death, this education is formally initiated at primary school level in our country. In addition to this information, environment education is not an independent course, but this education course is taught in Science of Life, Science and Social Studies courses with an interdisciplinary approach (Akınoğlu & Sarı, 2009; MNE, 2018). For this reason, primary school teachers should be capable of teaching environment education sufficiently. Therefore, it would be more appropriate to examine primary school teachers’ perceptions about environment. These perceptions eventually will affect their teaching methods of environment education. In this research, it is aimed to determine the primary school teachers’ attitudes about environment who are working in Samsun. In order to achieve this aim, the New Ecological Paradigm scale was applied to the primary school teachers. In the research, a quantitative research method was used. The study was conducted using cross-sectional survey. The universe of the study covers a total of 3509 primary school teachers who are working in Samsun. The sample of the study is composed of 515 primary school teachers who are working 14 districts in Samsun. The sample was determined by stratified sampling method. The data in the study were collected by the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale, revised by Dunlap et al. (2000). The reliability coefficient of the scale is 0.83. This scale is a 5-point Likert type measuring instrument consisting of 15 questions related to environmental attitude. The New Ecological Paradigm scale explanatory factor analysis shown, 15 items and 2 factorial structure. The first part of scale is for ecocentric attitude while the second part is for anthropocentric attitude. In order to collect demographic information, participants were asked their sexes, their schools, most of their childhood where they live, and whether they took environmental course or not. Data were collected spring term of the 2017-2018 academic year. The data collected with New Ecological Paradigm scale were analyzed with statistical package program. The independent sample t-test was used in order to compare attitudes of primary school teachers towards environment by their gender and whether they took environmental lessons at university or not. Variance analysis was used to compare primary school teachers' attitudes about environment. Tukey test was used when differences were found in variance analysis. The fact that the general average of primary school teachers' highly nature-centred attitudes indicates that they are sensitive to this issue. The fact, which the general average of primary school teachers' attitudes towards the human-centred environment (3.41) is moderate, indicates that they have a centralized focus on environmental issues, partly on the issue. The test results show that the difference between the ecocentric attitudes of male and female primary school teachers are significant and that the ecocentric attitudes of female primary school teachers are highe
Bu çalışmanın amacı, sınıf öğretmenlerinin çevreye yönelik tutumlarının belirlenmesidir. Bu kapsamda sınıf öğretmenlerinin çevresel tutumları üzerinde; üniversitede çevre ile ilgili bir ders alıp almama, görev yaptığı okulun bulunduğu ilçenin sosyo-ekonomik gelişmişlik düzeyi, çocukluğunun geçtiği yerleşim yeri ve cinsiyet gibi değişkenlerin etkisinin ortaya çıkartılması hedeflenmektedir. Bu amaca ulaşmak için çalışmada Yeni Ekolojik Paradigma Ölçeği, Samsun ilindeki ilkokullarda görev yapan sınıf öğretmenlerine uygulanmıştır. Çalışmada Samsun ilinin örneklem olarak seçilmesinde; konumu, sosyo-ekonomik yapısı, ulaşılabilirlik durumu, öğretmen sayısı ve özellikleri ile kırsal ve kentsel özellik taşıyan yerleşim yerlerine sahip olmasıyla sınıf öğretmelerinin çevresel tutumlarının incelenmesi için uygun bir mekân olduğu kanaati etkili olmuştur. Veriler, Samsun’un 14 ilçesinde görev yapan 515 sınıf öğretmeninden toplanmıştır. Verilerin analizinde bağımsız örneklem t-testi ve varyans analizi kullanılmıştır. Yapılan analizler sonucunda Samsun ilindeki sınıf öğretmenlerinin çevre konusunda yüksek bir tutuma sahip oldukları görülmektedir. Bununla birlikte veriler, kadınların erkeklere oranla daha yüksek çevresel endişe göstererek daha doğa merkezli bir tutumda oluklarına işaret etmektedir. Ayrıca görev yapılan yerin gelişmişlik durumu artıkça öğretmelerin daha fazla insan merkezli bir tutuma yöneldikleri görülmektedir. Ancak öğretmenlerin üniversite eğitimleri süresince çevre eğitimi dersi alıp almamalarıyla doğa merkezli çevresel bir tutum kazanmaları arasında pozitif yönlü bir ilişki bulunmamaktadır. Yani çevre eğitimi, doğa merkezli çevresel bir tutum kazanmada etkili bir argüman olmasına rağmen bu çalışmada çevre eğitimi dersi alma, öğretmenlerin doğa merkezli bir tutum kazanmaları üzerinde etkili olmamıştır. Üniversitelerde okutulan çevre eğitimi derslerinin kazanımlarının teorikten çok davranış ve tutum odaklı olarak yeniden düzenlenerek disiplinler arası bir yaklaşımla yürütülmesi yerinde olacaktır.