Session Information
09 SES 04 A, Assessment of Competencies and Attitudes in Science Classrooms
Paper Session
Contribution
In recent years, individuals’ optimism toward environmental futures has gained an importance in the field of environmental psychology as well as environmental education research. Optimism was defined as: "a mood or attitude associated with an expectation about the social or material future-- one which the evaluator regards as socially desirable, to his [or her] advantage, or for his [or her] pleasure" (Tiger, 1979, p. 18). According to Gifford et al. (2009) optimism may direct individuals and societies towards success as long as preferred goals are attainable and real risks are not overlooked. Gifford et al. (2008) defined comparative optimism as the belief that positive events are more likely, and negative events are less likely to happen to one-self than to others. According to authors, a governmental enterprise is not enough to carry out an environmental action plan but also the attitudes of individual citizens are important. For example, governments may change environmental policies with respect to citizen’s perceptions of environmental risk. At this point, being optimistic about environmental issues plays an important role. Literature review on individuals’ level of optimistic point of views pertaining to environment has shown that individuals are generally pessimistic about environmental futures. For instance, Duan and Fortner (2005) examined Chinese college students’ future perceptions about the global versus local environmental issues. They reported that Chinese students regarded future state of global issues as worse than now when compared with the expected state of local issues. Furthermore, Chinese students stated that their lives would change more by the impact of local issues than by global issues. Similarly, Pahl et al. (2005) conducted a study to determine British students’ perceptions for adverse effects of environmental risks of nuclear power, air pollution and water pollution. These students were asked to rate their future expectations about the local consequences of three threats. As a result of data analysis, it was concluded that British students were comparatively optimistic about environmental futures of the related threats. As a cross-cultural study, Gifford et al. (2008) assessed the current and expected future state of environmental issues at three spatial levels (my area, my country and globally) by 3219 participants from 18 different countries. According to the results of this study, the participants believed that the future of the environment would be worse than now. Furthermore, the participants from almost all of the countries also manifested temporal pessimism. According to comparisons among countries, some of these countries were more (or less) optimistic than many others. In addition, as the results showed current environmental conditions decreased significantly as geographical distance from the person increased. The literature review provides us some evidences on how adults from different cultures perceive the future of environmental issues. However, we have insufficient data pertaining to elementary school students expectations about environmental futures. This study investigated Turkish elementary school students’ level of optimistic point of views on environmental issues and problems and, the impacts of grade level and gender on these students’ optimistic point of views regarding environmental issues and problems.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Duan, H., & Fortner, R. W. (2005). Chinese college students’ perceptions about global versus local environmental issues. Journal of Environmental Education, 36, 23-32. Gifford, R., et al. (2008). Temporal pessimism and spatial optimism in environmental assessments: An 18-nation study. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29, 1-12. Hsu, S. J., & Roth, R. E. (1999). Predicting Taiwanese secondary teachers’ responsible environmental behavior through environmental literacy variables. Journal of Environmental Education, 30(4), 11-18. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] (2007). PISA 2006-Science competencies for tomorrow’s world (Vol 1:Analysis). Paris: Author. Pahl, S. and Harris, P.R. and Todd, H.A. et al. (2005). Comparative optimism for environmental risks. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 25 (1),1-11. Teksöz, G., Tekkaya, C. and Erbaş, A. K. (2009). Geographical Regions as a Silent Predictor of Responsible Environmental Behaviour. Hacettepe University Journal of Education, 36, 249-259. Tiger, L. (1979). Optimism: The Biology of Hope. Simon and Shuster. Tikka, P. M., Kuitunen, M. T., & Tynys, S. M. (2000). Effects of educational background on students’ attitudes, activity levels and knowledge concerning environment. Journal of Environmental Education, 31, 12-19.
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