Environmental Awareness of Teacher Candidates

Abstract

The aim of this research was to determine the environmental awareness of teacher candidates. According to this aim
the research was carried out with a total of 532 students randomly selected from all departments of Trakya University
Faculty of Education and Pedagogical Formation program students during the fall semester of 2016-2017.
“Environmental Awareness Scale" prepared by the researcher was used as data collection tool. The scale consists of
71 items with a rating of 4. For each sub-scale, the internal consistency was determined by calculating the item-total
correlation coefficient and item-remainder correlation coefficient. In the same way, t-test between the upper quartile
and the lower quartile was applied to detect the discrimination power of the items. For the scale and sub-scales, the
reliability was determined by calculating the Cronbach and Rulon coefficients. It was determined that the scale
consisting of 3 factors was valid, reliable and usable after statistical procedures. High scores in all items and factors
indicate positive environmental awareness.
A questionnaire consisting of 19 questions prepared by the researcher was used to collect data about the independent
variables of the research. The questionnaire contains questions about nature love as well as demographic
characteristics such as gender and age. The statistical analysis of data featured t test, variance analysis and LSD
methods for Post hoc analysis to determine the source of variation. In this research, generally it was found that the
environmental awareness of the candidate teachers was very high.