An Examination of Pre-Service Science Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Solid Waste and Recycling

Abstract

There are some changes observed in environment nowadays. Especially the perspective of solid waste and recycling has been in a transformation. The purpose of this study to examine the pre-service science teachers’ attitudes toward solid waste and recycling in terms of gender, grade level, family’s financial status and the place of residence. The study group was consist of 201 pre-service science teachers. The data collection tools of the research were "Personal Information Form" prepared by researcher and "The scale of pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards solid wastes and recycling" developed by Karatekin (2013). The data were analyzed via t-test and ANOVA. It was found that while pre-service science teachers’ attitudes toward solid waste and recycling in terms of gender and grade level were significant differences, their family’s financial status and the place of residence were not significant differences. Female pre-service science teachers had more positive attitudes toward solid waste and recycling than male pre-service science teachers had. The fourth-grade pre-service science teachers’ attitudes toward solid waste and recycling were found to be more positive than the others.

Keywords: environmental education, solid waste, recycling, attitude, pre-service science teacher.