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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 15, Issue 2, Article 7 (Dec., 2014) |
This research, which aims to determine the environmental risk perceptions and environmental awareness levels of high school students in Eskisehir, is a type of descriptive research. Although Karasar (2010) describes the survey method as a strategy that aims to reveal a past or present situation, Buyukozturk, Cakmak, Akgun, Karadeniz and Demirel (2009) define the method as a strategy that determines the views of participants concerning a situation or an event or specifies participants’ characteristics, such as interests, skills, attitudes, etc.
High school students in the towns of Tepebasi and Odunpazari in Eskisehir in the 2010-2011 school years constitute the universe of the study.
The sample of the research is composed of 413 high school students in the towns of Tepebasi and Odunpazari in Eskisehir in the 2010-2011 school years. The samples have been chosen through a stratified sampling method. According to Baykul (1999), the stratified sampling method is commonly used in social sciences and is particularly appropriate for nonhomogeneous universes. Stratified sampling is often used when one or more of the subsets in the population has a low incidence relative to the other subsets. In addition, Balcı (2004) states that subsets in the universe are guaranteed to be represented sufficiently in this sampling method. Because the study aimed to collect the views of students from three different high schools, each school type has been regarded as a stratum. Therefore, 201 students from Anatolian high schools, 87 from general high schools and 125 from high schools of science, were included in the study.
A questionnaire form that was prepared by the researcher has been used as the data collection tool. The survey includes three sections. Individual characteristics are gathered in the first section. In the second section is a five-point Likert-type scale with the answers “not at all”, “not much”, “neutral”, “somewhat” and “very” to assess the environmental risk perception level. The third section has been prepared as a five-point Likert-type scale that includes statements regarding the assessment of environmental awareness levels and includes answers of “strongly agree”, “agree”, “neither agree nor disagree”, “disagree” and “strongly disagree”. In the formation of the scale, literature has been reviewed, and similar studies have been consulted (Beyhun et.al.,2007; Fernandez-Manzanal, Rodriguez-Barreiro & Carrasquer, 2007; Altunoğlu & Atav, 2009; Aslan et.al., 2008; Uzun & Sağlam, 2006; Kaya, Akıllı & Sezek, 2009, La Trobe & Acott, 2000). Expert views have been used for the validity of the Environmental Risk Perception and Environmental Awareness Level surveys that were developed by the researcher. Cronbach’s Alpha (Tezbasaran, 1996) values have been checked for reliability. The Environmental Risk Perception and Environmental Awareness Survey have been submitted to two experts of Turkish for language validity and two experts of environmental education for scope validity. The alpha value of the Environmental Risk Perception survey is .91, and the alpha value of the Environmental Awareness Level survey is .80. It can thus be stated that the data collection tools are valid and reliable.
The data of the research have been analysed quantitatively in the SPSS program. The frequency and percentages of the first and second sub-problems of the research have been obtained. Whether the data are distributed normally has been checked to decide which parametric or non-parametric tests will be used for the third and fourth sub-problems of the research. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test has been applied for this purpose, and it has been observed that the data are not normally distributed (p<.05). Thus, non-parametric tests have been used in the analysis of the data. Therefore, Mann-Whitney U Test has been used in bivariate comparisons, and the Kruskal-Wallis Test has been applied in multivariate comparisons to analyse the data.
