Turkish Pre-service Primary School Teachers' Environmental Attitudes: Effects of Gender and Grade Level

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore Turkish pre-service primary school teachers' attitudes towards environment. Besides, it aimed to investigate how pre-service primary school teachers' environmental attitudes change with grade level and gender. A total of 2067 pre-service teachers attending to primary school education departments of nine different universities in Turkey participated in the study. The results of the study showed that the pre-service primary school teachers have a high level of environmental attitudes (M = 152.62, SD = 13.18). The results also revealed that there is a statistically significant mean difference (t = 2.03, p = .04) between males and females in favor of females with a large effect size (η2= .99). The results also showed that there are no significant differences (F(3,2063) = 1.676, p = .170) between pre-service teachers enrolling to different grades with respect to their environmental attitudes.