Modeling the relationship between pre-service teachers' global climate change awareness, sustainable development awareness and ecological citizenship levels

The aim of this study is to examine the relationships between pre-service teachers' global climate change awareness, sustainable development awareness and ecological citizenship levels with structural equation modeling and to evaluate these relationships in depth with qualitative data. The research was conducted with explanatory sequential mixed method; relational survey design was used in the quantitative phase and phenomenological design was used in the qualitative phase. The sample consists of 978 pre-service teachers studying in the 4th grade in the 2022-2023 academic year, determined by stratified and simple random sampling method. There are 13 pre-service teachers in the study group. Quantitative data were collected with the "Global Climate Change Awareness Scale", "Sustainable Development Awareness Scale" and "Ecological Citizenship Scale". Qualitative data were collected through a semi-structured interview form. In quantitative analyses, reliability and normality analyses were performed with SPSS-27 program and confirmatory factor analysis with Lisrel 8.7. Since the data were normally distributed, parametric tests were preferred; Independent Samples t-test and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to determine the differences according to the variables. Pearson correlation analysis was applied to determine the relationships between variables. In addition, mediation analyses were conducted with AMOS-22 and PROCESS Macro v4.2 programs and Bootstrap analysis was applied to test significance. Qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis technique. The data coded with MAXQDA 2022 program were combined under sub-themes and their frequencies were determined. According to the quantitative findings of the research, pre-service teachers' awareness of global climate change is high, the sub-dimensions of effects on the natural and human environment and the relationship between energy consumption are very high, and the sub-dimensions of global organizations and causes are at medium level. Sustainable development awareness, society and environment sub-dimensions are very high, and economy dimension is high. Ecological citizenship levels are medium, rights and justice are very high, sustainability and responsibility are high, and participation is medium. While pre-service teachers' awareness of global climate change does not differ significantly according to gender, there is a significant difference in favor of women in the sub-dimension of effects on natural and human environment. Significant differences were also found in favor of women in the awareness of sustainable development and environment and society sub-dimensions. Although ecological citizenship levels did not differ according to gender, a significant difference was found in favor of women in the dimensions of sustainability and rights and justice. No significant difference was found in the scale and sub-dimensions according to the university variable. According to the department variable, pre-service social studies teachers' awareness of climate change is higher than pre-service classroom teachers. In the sub-dimensions, pre-service science and social studies teachers have higher awareness of global organizations than pre-service classroom teachers; pre-service science teachers have higher awareness of energy consumption relationship than the other two departments. Sustainable development awareness and its sub-dimensions and ecological citizenship levels and its sub-dimensions do not differ significantly according to the department variable. However, pre-service science teachers have higher levels of sustainability than pre-service primary school teachers. In addition, significant positive relationships were found between global climate change awareness and ecological citizenship at a moderate level, sustainable development awareness at a weak level, and ecological citizenship and sustainable development at a very weak level. In addition, climate change awareness has a mediating role in the relationship between ecological citizenship and sustainable development awareness. According to the qualitative findings of the study, pre-service teachers stated that the main factor preventing the development of awareness of global organizations and international agreements was that these issues were not sufficiently covered at school. Awareness of the causes of global climate change is affected by the insufficiency of awareness-raising activities. The main factor that increases awareness of sustainable development is environment-oriented course content. On the other hand, being an ecological citizen is negatively affected by habitual behavior and consumption-oriented lifestyle. Lack of environmental awareness significantly limits the environmental participation of individuals. Pre-service teachers emphasized that global climate change awareness is determinant in the relationship between ecological citizenship and sustainable development awareness; they stated that ecological citizens' environmentally friendly behaviors contribute to sustainable development goals, and this awareness supports environmental awareness and behavior change. As a result of the findings of the study, various suggestions were made.