The relationship between pre-service early childhood teachers' environmental education self-efficacy beliefs and tehir attitudes towards sustainable environment

Date

2018-09-07

Author

Gülçiçek, Turan
Olgan, Refika

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Environmental education is one of the fields becoming popular in early childhood education since this period is a basis for all developmental areas and it provides a lifelong learning which results in attitudes, behaviors and skills promoting sustainable development (Pearson & Degotardi, 2009; Ernst & Tornabene, 2012). Unfortunately, the time that children spend playing and interacting with nature declines steadily due to teachers’ inadequate experiences in nature (Crim, Desjean-Perrotta, & Moseley, 2008). Hence, it is needed to motivate pre-service teachers to use and integrate nature into teaching but firstly, it is significant to comprehend their attitudes and perceptions towards environmental issues (Ernst, & Tornabene, 2012). Although there is a growing disposition for involving children into nature, there is a limited research about early childhood environmental education and education for sustainability (Davis, 2009). In addition, Torquati, Cutler, Gilkerson, & Sarver (2013) assert that there is a limited information about early childhood educators’ knowledge, attitudes and confidence levels about implementing environmental education. Therefore, the purpose of the current study is to fill this gap by investigating the relationship between pre-service early childhood education teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs regarding environmental education and their attitudes towards sustainable environment. Moreover, the current research is under propped by the premise which teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and their thinking influences the content of teaching since teachers are disposed to teach the issue that they are authority on and interested in (Evans, Whitehouse, & Hickey; 2012). Therefore, the current study aims to answer following research questions; 1.What are the general patterns of pre-service ECE teachers’ environmental education self-efficacy beliefs and attitudes towards sustainable environment? 2. Do pre-service ECE teachers’ environmental education self-efficacy beliefs and attitudes towards sustainable environment differ with respect to taking environmental education and sustainability courses and their grade levels? 3. Is there a relationship between pre-service ECE teachers’ environmental education self-efficacy beliefs and their attitudes towards sustainable environment?

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/87103

Conference Name

European Educational Research Association’ (EERA) 2018

Collections

Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education, Conference / Seminar

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Citation Formats

T. Gülçiçek and R. Olgan, “The relationship between pre-service early childhood teachers’ environmental education self-efficacy beliefs and tehir attitudes towards sustainable environment ,” presented at the European Educational Research Association’ (EERA) 2018, Bolzano, Italy, 2018, Accessed: 00, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/87103.