Development of Environmental Attitude Scale Towards Pre-Service Biology Teachers

Abstract

Healthy life for all living creatures in nature is possible with a clean and habitable environment. Raising awareness of protecting environment in human landscape is important for conservation. Upbringing of informed individuals about environment and constitute behavioral changes by gaining their positive attitudes for nature have an important role in solutions of environmental issues. For this purpose, environmental attitude scale was developed to reveal the pre-service teachers’ reflection and attitude for environment. This scale was applied 178 students who were the pre-service teachers in biology education department. Reliability calculation and exploratory factor analysis of the scale were computed via packaged software SPSS 13.0 while confirmatory factor analysis was computed via software Lisrel 8.80. Internal consistency coefficient of Cronbach alpha was found as 0.87 which signifies was a good value for reliability co-efficient.  As the result of factor analysis, which was applied to obtained data, it was determined that eighteen itemized scale was five-dimensional. These dimensions were as follows: environmental issues, energy saving, waste products, environmental responsibility and environmental support according to cognitive, affective and behavioral statements. It was confirmed that, there was a positive and linear relation among the marks that students got and factors of the scales. Moreover, confirmatory factor analysis studies of the survey were computed via software Lisrel 8.80. In this current study, it was found as; RMSEA=0.050; SRMR=0.062; GFI=0.90; AGFI=0.86; CFI=0.97; NFI=0.92 and RFI=0.90, in the scope of confirmatory factor analysis. It has been confirmed that, the scale that was executed according to the results, can be used to as a reliable scale for environmental attitude.

Keywords: Environmental education, attitude, pre-service biology teachers