Middle School Students’ Attitudes towards the Environment and Factors Affecting their Attitudes

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KARADAĞ G., ÖZTÜRK HANEY M., ÖZBIÇAKÇI F. Ş.

International journal of caring sciences, 2022 (Hakemli Dergi)

Özet

Objective: This cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted to determine middle school students’ attitudes towards the environment and the factors affecting their attitudes. Method: The study using the simple random sampling and sample was 720 students. Data were collected with Sociodemographic Characteristics Questionnaire and Environmental Attitude Scale (EAS). Mean, percentage, ttests, variance analysis (One-Way ANOVA), were used in the analysis. Results: Of the environmental issues, the ones which drew the students’ attention most were the protection of animals (75.2%) and afforestation (65.0%) whereas the ones they considered as the most important were the environmental pollution (65.9%) and air pollution (60.5%). The students obtained the lowest (X̄= 3.1870) and highest (X̄=4.3172) mean scores from the 3rd and 7th items of the EAS respectively. Conclusions: It was determined that the participating students' attitudes towards the environment were positive in general, and that the participants at whose homes environmental issues are talked displayed more positive attitudes Keywords: Environment, Middle school, Student, Environmental Attitude Scale, Education