Analysis of change in the environmental perceptions of prospective science teachers: A longitudinal study http://www.ied.edu.hk/apfslt/v17

The complex nature of the concept of the environment, which has as many economic and political dimensions as biological and that involves the relationships of living things with each other and with non-living things around them, makes it difficult to understand. In the literature, it has been shown that the difficulties in perceiving the environment as a whole, with all its dimensions, has been observed in students at all levels of education from primary school to high school (Barraza, 1999; Lougland et al., 2002; Özsoy, 2012; Shepardson et al., 2007; Yardımcı & Bağcı Kılıç, 2010). These complexities were found even in undergraduate students of various fields (Desjean-Perrotta, Moseley & Cantu, 2008; Moseley, Desjean-Perrotta & Utley, 2010; Özata Yücel & Özkan, 2014a; Yavetz et al., 2014;). We tried to determine the effect of some courses, such as Ecology, Geology and Biology, in the Science Teacher Education Program of the Faculty of Education on the change of participants’ understanding of the environment through WAT, in the longitudinally implemented application conducted with the prospective science teachers.

The number and diversity of responses given to a key concept in WAT are considered to be an important sign of understanding this concept (Bahar et al., 1999). The results show that as the number of responses given to a keyword increases and diversifies, the cognitive structures also develop proportionally. In addition, as correct apprehension of a fact or situation is considered to be a sign of correct perception (Senemoğlu, 2005), when the responses given by respondents were examined, the perception of living things, non-living things and ecological concepts in the natural environment theme became stronger with the passing of time, while the perception regarding the artificial environment weakened. The study conducted by Shepardson et al. (2007) with students from 4th grade to 12th grade determined that only natural areas were considered as the environment. In the studies included in the literature, (Özsoy, 2012; Shepardson et al., 2007; Shepardson, 2005) plants and animals, which are living elements of the environment, were emphasized by a large number of respondents. Although fungus and microorganisms were added to these in the second application, the fact that these responses were given by very few participants shows that the determination of respondents regarding living elements of the environment is deficient and their perception regarding living elements of the environment has not been adequately enriched and altered.

The development regarding non-living things is much more limited. Although responses such as atmosphere, rain and rock were added to responses such as air, sun, soil and water in the second application, it is apparent that these responses were given by very few respondents. In the literature, it was reported that there was an emphasis on sun, water, mountains and lakes (Barraza, 1999; Özsoy, 2012). In these studies, the conceptual understanding and perception regarding non-living things was weaker than the conceptual understanding and perception regarding living things. This is supports our findings.

The results indicate that with the increase in the courses taken by respondents in this study regarding the environment, the respondents’ cognitive structures altered and thus, they associated the concept of environment with more concepts, added new concepts to these and there was a change in their cognitive perception in connection with this increase. For example, in the sub-theme of living things, the number of lower-level concepts such as tree, flower, dog, bug given in the first application decreased in the second application, and higher-level concepts such as plant and animal, which include others, were given more frequently in the responses. Similarly, the fact that the respondents emphasized ecological concepts, such as nature, forest and ecosystem, more frequently in the second application, that they included responses such as habitat, biodiversity, ecology, evolution and system, and that in the sentences formed, the emphasis towards social environment decreased while the systematic perception increased, shows that respondents’ cognitive structures were developed. Another finding which will support this result is that although there was a limited increase of change in the diversity of responses to ‘environmental problems’, there was an increase in total frequency. This is because while the number of responses, such as cigarette, smoke and crowded, decreased, the responses involving all of these, such as pollution and problem were adopted by many more respondents.

As was the case in other studies (Demirkaya, 2009; Yavetz et al., 2014), in this study it was determined that the environment in terms of ‘artificial environment’ was associated with social environment. However, the fact that the number of responses in the second application greatly decreased and that this decrease was caused by the decrease in the responses that are related to social dimensions of environment such as home, neighbourhood/street, country, city, garden and park, shows that the environment perception of prospective teachers moved away from social environment perception and evolved into a more ecological and scientific environment perception. Again, the fact that the number of sentences that have been evaluated in terms of environment as a social life area was reduced supports the argument that the ecological perception was strengthened. This may be indicative that prospective science teachers’ perception of environment, which they create based on their experiences in daily life in their cognitive structures, is reshaped based on college courses.

There was no change in the responses that expressed the emotions and situations of the respondents towards the environment. In various studies conducted, it was determined that the emotional closeness to nature is influential on willingness to protect nature and making behavioural decisions towards nature, and that the time spent in nature and personal experiences have an importance in strengthening emotional closeness to nature (Kals, Schumacher & Montada, 1999; Müller, Kals & Pansa, 2009). Therefore, it is thought that it is important to develop positive environmental emotions, to feed a realistic perception of the environment with correct information and to develop and change it in environmental education. In this respect, it is understood that integration of courses in which topics and concepts related to environmental education are included with the field studies of nature education, in addition to the teaching activities in the faculty, would have a significant role on effectively performing environmental education.

One of the common points of all the studies on environmental perception is that the participants associate environment with environmental problems (Barrazza, 1999; Özsoy, 2012; Shepardson et al., 2007; Yardımcı & Bağcı Kılıç, 2010). The same situation was also identified in this study. When the responses given in both applications are compared, it is understood that the perception towards environmental problems strengthened. In parallel with this, when the sentences formed were analysed, it was determined that the perception of the ‘environment to be protected’ of respondents continued to increase in the second application. It is argued that the cause of this strengthening of perception of environmental problems and environment to be protected may be the information acquired during their education, or that between the applications they had lived in a city, the pollution of which is higher than Turkey’s average, namely Kocaeli (Demirarslan & Demirarslan, 2016; Kiliç & Deniz, 2010; Ministry of Environment and Urbanization 2014; OECD, 2008; Özdilek, 2006). This is an industrial city and by means of facing these problems personally, they were able to monitor and observe certain environmental events and facts closely. It was emphasized in the literature that environmental awareness and sensitivity develops in the students who are aware of the degradation and environmental problems in their close environment (Özdemir, 2010). Moreover, it is thought that the frequent emphasis of these issues in television, newspapers and social media is likely to be effective in the alteration of environment perception.

Although there was a change in the respondents’ cognitive structures and perception towards the environment, this change was limited and complex relationships could not be fully comprehended (Table 4). This is interpreted from the sentences formed by the respondents. In the second application, the perception of ‘place where people live’ weakened while the perception of ‘place where living things lived’ became stronger (Table 4). In addition, it was determined that in the sentences formed in the first application, there was a tendency for ‘the place where living and non-living things are located’ to move towards ‘environment as system’. However, this increase was seen to be limited to only seven respondents (Table 4). This is thought to be due to the fact that environment and environmental relationships is a complex system.

It is appears that students have problems being able to recognize the relationship between the elements that constitute the environmental system, establishing the connection between the levels in the system, being able to comprehend the structure and mechanism thereof, being able to establish relationships between levels, and associating the relationship of living and non-living things (Hmelo, Holton & Kolodner, 2000; Eberbach, Hmelo-Silver, Jordan, Sinha & Goel, 2012). It is emphasized that in order to eliminate these problems, the basic concepts must be well internalized and that not only the observable dimensions of the system, but also all other dimensions must be considered during education (Jordan, Brooks, Hmelo-Silver, Eberbach & Sinha, 2014).

The inability to understand the complex nature of the environment is a major drawback for prospective teachers who will teach environmental subjects and concepts. The knowledge that this perception has changed very little in their education process suggests that it is necessary to improve teacher education programs and prioritize practice-oriented teaching activities.