Investigation of social studies teacher candidates attitudes and behavior perceptions regarding the zero waste policy

In this study, it was aimed to determine the attitudes and behavior levels of social studies teacher candidates towards the zero waste policy. In the research, a 5-point Likert-type attitude scale consisting of 27 items and three sub-dimensions developed by the researcher and a 5-point Likert-type behavior perception scale consisting of 27 items and five sub-dimensions were used as data collection tools. The study group consisted of 488 teacher candidates studying in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades of social studies teaching at 28 universities in Turkey in the 2022–2023 academic year. The statistics program was used in the analysis of the data in the study. Within the scope of data analysis, t-tests, Mann-Whitney U tests, Kruskal-Wallis tests, and Spearman correlation analyses were conducted to examine the frequency distributions of the variables (gender, age, university attended, grade level, and status of taking courses related to environmental education), descriptive statistics, the normal distribution of the scale, the relations between the variables, and the attitudes and behavior levels towards zero waste policy. As a result, it was determined that the social studies teacher candidates' attitudes and behaviors towards the zero waste policy were high. It has been determined that the attitude levels of social studies teacher candidates differ according to gender and taking courses related to environmental education, but do not differ according to the university or grade level. Again, within the scope of the study, it was determined that the behavior levels of the social studies teacher candidates differed according to the status of taking courses related to environmental education but did not differ according to gender, university, or grade level. In addition, it was concluded that there is a high level of positive correlation between the attitudes of the participants towards the zero-waste policy and their behavior levels.