Determination of environmental ethics affective levels of secondary school students

In this study, it was aimed to develop a valid and reliable scale that measures the affective levels of environmental ethic, to determine the affective levels of secondary school students participating in the research according to gender and class variables and to reveal the environmental ethics approaches adopted by the students. The study of the research consists of 494 (241 girls; 253 boys) secondary school students studying at a public secondary school in the central district of Van. During the scale development phase, pilot data were collected from 743 secondary school (424 girls; 319 boys) selected by stratified sampling method from three central districts in Van. "Environmental Ethics Affective Scale" was developed to obtain quantitative data. The interview technique was used to support the research results with qualitative data. According to the reliability analysis of the 21 item scale with construct validity, the Cronbach Alpha coefficient was found to be .901. As a result of the analysis of the data, a significant gender difference was found between the average scores of the students participating in the study from the environmental ethics affective scale. A statistically significant difference was found as a result of the analysis of variance in the mean score differences in environmental ethics affective level in secondary school (5, 6, 7 and 8th) grades. As a result of the quantative and qualitative analyzes although the secondary school students who partcipated in research knew about ecocentric behaviors; it has been determined that they exhibit anthropocentric behaviors when they have interests.