Modeling preservice science teachers' environmentally friendly behaviors

The purpose of this study is to examine the preservice science teachers' proenvironmental behaviors, environmental identity, and ecocentric and anthropocentric attitudes toward environment. In addition, it was aimed to investigate the predictors of these variables. A total of 576 (407 females and 169 males) preservice science teachers enrolling in five public universities' education faculties in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolian Region of Turkey were administered a questionnaire consisting of Environmental Identity Scale, Environmental Attitudes Scale, Proenvironmental Behaviors Scale, and Demographical Questionnaire in spring semester of 2014-2015 educational year. Convenience sampling method was chosen to constitute the sample of this study. In order to analyze the data collected, mean, frequency, percentage as descriptive statistics; and path analysis as inferential statistics were utilized. According to the results of the study, preservice science teachers were engaged in moderate level of favorable environmental behaviors, had strong environmental identity, and possessed high ecocentric but moderate anthropocentric attitudes toward environment. Moreover, environmental identity directly and strongly predicted the preservice science teachers' proenvironmental behaviors. On the other hand, gender did not play significant role in predicting the proenvironmental behaviors.