Analysis of environmental attitudes of preschool children (five-six ages) in terms of child and teacher variables

Objective: The aim of this study is to examine the environmental attitudes of children who are in pre-school (five-six ages) education in Malatya province in terms of child and teacher variables. Material and Method: This research was carried out in pre-schools and nursery classes affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Malatya province with 238 children and their teachers (30 teachers) who were in pre-school education during the fall semester of 2017-2018 academic year. As a means of collecting data in the research, "General Information Form" developed by the researcher, "Semi-structured Interview Form" consisting of 13 questions, and "Attitudes towards the Environment: Pre-school Version of the Environmental Attitude Scale for Children (CATES-PV)" developed by Musser & Diamond in 1999 for pre-school children and adapted to Turkish by Kahraman Ozturk in 2010 have been used. In the analysis of the research, a mixed method was used, in which both quantitative and qualitative research methods were discussed. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 22.0 statistical package program was used to analyze the quantitative data obtained in the study. One-way ANOVA for unrelated samples and t-test for independent groups were used to compare the average of the scores according to the variables in the analysis of the quantitative data. In the analysis of qualitative data, the content analysis method was used. Findings: A statistically significant difference was found between the environmental attitude averages according to the school variable (p<.05). No significant difference was found between the environmental attitude point averages according to gender, age, mother education level and father education level variables (p>.05). It was determined that the qualitative data obtained from the teachers supported quantitative data. The Result: As a result of the research, children's environmental attitude scores on CATES-PV scale were found to be high (x̄=48.63). The environmental attitudes observed by teachers in children are mostly related to behaviors such as environmental cleanliness, environmental protection and saving. Keywords: child, preschool period, environmental attitude, teacher.