Examination of vocational high school students' level of knowledge about environmental concepts and their attitudes towards sustainable development: Antalya example

The aim of this study is to determine the level of knowledge of vocational high school students about environmental concepts and their attitudes towards sustainable development. The research model was created according to the nested mixed design and qualitative and quantitative research designs were used together. The sample of the study was composed of 416 students in the 11th and 12th grades of vocational high schools in Kepez, Muratpaşa, Konyaaltı and Döşemealtı districts of Antalya province in the 2022-2023 academic year. The "Scale for Assessing High School Students' Attitudes Towards Sustainable Development" developed by Çimer and Aydın (2018) with a reliability coefficient of 0.806 and 2 questionnaires prepared with the questionnaire technique were used as data collection tools. In the analysis of the data, Independent Sample T-Test and One-Way ANOVA tests as well as Descriptive Statistics analysis were used. According to the findings, it was seen that the attitudes of the study group towards sustainable development were at a low level. Considering the findings, it was determined that there was no significant difference between the attitudes of vocational high school students towards sustainable development and their gender. Considering the grade level, 11th grade students' responses to the negative items of the scale are higher than 12th grade students. It was determined that the mean scores of the study group on the negative items of the Scale for the Evaluation of High School Students' Attitudes Towards Sustainable Development differed statistically according to some of the fields they were studying, their parents' education levels and the frequency of content viewing, while the mean scores on the positive items of the scale differed statistically according to some of the fields they were studying, their fathers' education levels and the frequency of content viewing. When the question tables are analyzed, it is seen that 72.8% of the students answered "I have never come across" to the term Pesticide and 65.4% answered "I have enough knowledge to explain" to the term Carnivore. In addition, 38.9% of the students answered "I know enough to explain" to the term Sustainability. Among the 68 terms that the study group learned from the textbook, the highest rate is 76.4% for the term Biosphere and the lowest rate is 45.7% for the term Biotrafficking.