An Investigation of Secondary School Students’ Environmental Attitudes and Opinions about Environmental Education (EE)

The purpose of this study is to determine the environmental attitudes of secondary school students and their opinions about environmental education (EE). It also aims to make recommendations in order to give more importance to studies on this subject in Turkey based on the findings obtained. The research problem is ‘What are the opinions and attitudes of secondary school students towards environmental awareness and education?’ In the study descriptive method and quantitative and qualitative research techniques were used. An attitude scale was developed to determine the students’ attitudes towards the environment. On this scale the necessary validity and reliability studies were carried out. The final attitude scale was administered to 408 secondary school students in the city centre of Niğde in the academic year 2016-2017. In addition, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 71 students in order to determine the views of students on EE. The quantitative data obtained from the attitude scale were compared in terms of variables such as gender, class level and school type. Interview data were divided into categories through content analysis, and frequencies were calculated and tabulated. When the attitude scale scores were examined, significant differences were revealed for gender and school type, whereas no difference was found regarding class level. Based on the data obtained from the interviews conducted with the students, recommendations were made for schools to organize the activities that will promote environmental awareness and EE.