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www.sxcejournal.com, Research and Reflections on Education ISSN 0974-648X Vol.18 No.
1 April-June 2018
DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDE

OF PROSPECTIVE SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS
* Dr. BODA SRINIVASA RAO ** MEESALA SURIBABU
ABSTRACT
The present study attempts to study the different dimensions of environmental attitude
of prospective secondary school teachers. The sample for the present study is 1011
prospective secondary school teachers belonging to fourteen (14) colleges of education in
Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh. The investigators used the normative survey
method. Environmental Attitude Scale developed and standardized by Dr. Haseen Taj was
used in the present study. Methodology subjects opted at B.Ed. level by the prospective
secondary school teachers make a significant difference in their attitude towards
environment in the dimensions of health and hygiene, and polluters. The prospective
secondary school teachers who opted Social Studies as their methodology subject differed
significantly from prospective secondary school teachers who opted Biological Science,
Physical Science and Mathematics as their methodology subjects in their attitude towards
environment in the dimension of health and hygiene. The prospective secondary school
teachers who opted social studies as their methodology subject differed significantly from
prospective secondary school teachers who opted Biological Science and Physical Science as
their methodology subjects in their attitude towards environment in the dimension of
polluters. Locality of prospective secondary school teachers failed to show any significant
variation in different dimensions of environmental attitude.
Keywords: Environment, Environmental Attitude and Prospective secondary school teachers
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Dr. Boda Srinivasa Rao, Principal, Minerva College of Education, Prathipadu-
533432, E. G. District, A.P., Cell No. +919030157123, Email: sowda.sri@gmail.com.
** Suribabu Meesala, Lecturer, S. V. College of Education, P.L. Puram (post),
Payakaraopet-531126, Visakhapatnam District, A.P. Cell No. +919394014771
INTRODUCTION
Environmental attitudes can include any attitude related to natural or architecture, but
the usual focus is on environmental concern for nature or the amount a person cares about the
state of the natural environment. Concern for certain parts of the built environment also
deserves some attention. Attitudes, in general, are usually said to have three components:
Cognitive, affective and conative. In terms of the environment, the cognitive component
refers to what an individual’s knows or thinks about a place, including facts and opinions
about it. The affective component refers to the emotional aspects of attitudes towards the
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www.sxcejournal.com, Research and Reflections on Education ISSN 0974-648X Vol.18 No.1 April-June 2018
place. The conative component refers to an individual’s behavioural intentions toward the
place.
Today man is living in the world of social, economic, political and value crises.
Added to this, in recent decades the environmental crisis has become another important
factor, which has made everyone in the world to think of its gravity. This is due to increasing
population, urbanization, shrinking of agricultural land, desertification, and technological
development and vanishing of forests. All these lead to heavy localized air and water
pollution coupled with holes in the ozone layer. To combat environmental degradation many
initiatives have been taken up at International, National, State and Institutional level by
government and voluntary organizations. Among those, compulsory environmental education
at all levels in the education system as directed by Supreme Court is the most appropriate
strategy to create awareness, attitude, understanding and action towards environmental
protection. The main objective of environmental education is to develop knowledge based
awareness that will lead to imbibing of responsible attitude towards environment.
The effectiveness of environmental education depends on the availability of
environmentally trained teachers. As stated by Yogamurthy "the teachers should be
competent in applying the knowledge of ecological foundations to environmental issues and
identify key principles involved. Teachers should develop the similar attitude and
competencies in learners to take individual or group decisions and actions". Thus the teachers
should have fundamental competencies in environmental concerns, and positive attitude
towards environment. These are to be inculcated among prospective teachers as a lamp can
never light another, unless it continues to burn its own flame.
According to Belgrade Charter attitude is defined as one's inclination to help
individuals and social groups, acquire social values, strong feelings of concern for the
environment and motivation to actively participate in its protection and improvement. The
main issue now is to what extent future teachers are having positive attitude towards
environment.
NEED AND IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY
Environment is an essential factor for existence of life. Every individual needs
positive attitude towards environment. The consciousness about surroundings develops
through education which results in the formation of positive attitude towards environment.
Teacher plays a key role in developing the environmental awareness and attitude towards
environment among students.
The teacher plays an important role in shaping and moulding the habits,
manners and good character of the children. Therefore to gear up the environmental
awareness program, it is essential that the teacher should have sufficient knowledge of
environmental education. It is the responsibility of teacher training colleges and universities
to groom teachers for this task of checking environmental degradation. The curriculum in
existing teacher training courses (nursery teacher training, B.Ed., M.Ed., in–service teacher
training) should be suitably amended to incorporate environmental education content, by
emphasizing methods to deal with environmental education content at school and college and
to develop skills in organizing environmental education programs with co-curricular activities
like NCC, NSS and so on. The effective implementation of environmental education requires
a large number of teachers who are knowledgeable and skillful to deal with environmental
education in a meaningful way. This would also require the training to handle child-centred
and activity – based curriculum. The role of a teacher in environmental education includes
teacher as a planner, sustainers and as a value instigator. Teacher should be at the forefront in
pursuing the action on environmental education, whether acting as individuals infusing
environmental perspectives into their classes or collectively fostering environmental
education through their educational institutions, professional societies, state infrastructures,
and local or national advocacy groups. Hence the investigator is interested to know the
attitude of prospective secondary school teachers.
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Bhuvaneswara Lakshmi, G. and Sailaja, V. V. (2008) made a study of the environmental
attitude of women prospective teachers in relation with attitude towards science. The results
revealed that there were differences observed in the levels of attitude towards environmental
science and science among the women prospective secondary school teachers. The subject of
methodology at B.Ed. level influenced the environmental attitude of the women prospective
teachers. The women prospective teachers of science subjects have more attitude than women
prospective teachers of other subjects. Attitude towards environmental science and science
were significantly correlated.
Leonard Ashok and Mitra (2008) made a comparative study of teacher’s attitude towards
environmental education and teaching profession. The results indicated that the teacher’s
attitude towards environment was not significantly different due to certain characters such as
locality and educational qualifications.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The title of the present investigation is “Study of the Different Dimensions of
Environmental Attitude of Prospective Secondary School Teachers” .
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The following objectives have been formulated for present study.
1. To assess the impact of methodology subjects opted at B.Ed. level of prospective
secondary school teacher on the different dimensions of environmental attitude.
2. To assess the impact of locality of prospective secondary school teacher on the
different dimensions of environmental attitude.
HYPOTHESES OF THE STUDY
The following hypotheses have been framed to attain the stated objectives.
1. There is no significant difference in different dimensions of environmental attitude of
prospective secondary school teachers in relation to their methodology subjects opted
at B.Ed. level.
prospective secondary school teachers in relation to their locality.
Limitations of the Present Study
The geographical area of the investigation is limited to only some selected Colleges of
Education in Visakhapatnam district of A.P. The present study is confined to 14 Colleges of
Education out of the 19 and the level of significance considered in this study is 0.05 and 0.01
level.
METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY
Sample
Normative Survey Method was adopted in this study. The sample for the study was
1011 prospective secondary school teachers belonging to fourteen (14) colleges of education
in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh. The sample for this study had been selected by
the simple random technique.
Tool used
Environmental Attitude Scale
This scale developed and standardized by Dr. Haseen Taj (2001) was used for this
study. It consists of 61 items in which 31 are favourable and 30 are unfavourable
statements. It deals with six different dimensions. They are population explosion, health and
hygiene, polluters, wild life, forests and environmental concerns.
Statistical Techniques Used
Mean, Standard Deviation, Critical Ratio, ANOVA and t- Test were used to analyse the data.
Analysis of Data and Interpretation of Results
prospective secondary school teachers in relation to their methodology subjects opted
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at B.Ed. level.
Table1
DIFFERENCE IN DIMENSIONS OF ENVIRONMENT ATTITUDE WITH RESPECT
TO METHODOLOGY SUBJECTS OPTED AT B.ED. LEVEL
Dimensions of Sources of Sum of Mean of
Sl. df F-values
E.A.S. variance squares squares
No
Between 65.63 3 21.88
1 Health and Hygiene 3.52*
Within 6249.32 1007 6.21
1010
Between 8.73 3 2.91
2 Wildlife 0.47
Within 6266.36 1007 6.22
1010
Between 38.71 3 12.90
3 Forests 1.83
within 7093.70 1007 7.04
1010
Between 405.02 3 135.00
4 Polluters 3.12*
With in 43593.80 1007 43.29
1010
Between 27.45 3 9.15
5 Population Explosion 1.57
Within 5850.61 1007 5.81
1010
Between 76.13 3 25.38
6 Environmental concern 1.20
Within 21382.69 1007 21.23
1010
*Significant at 0.05 level
Table No. 1 shows that the obtained F- values (3.52 and 3.12) for df = 3 and 1007 are
greater than the table value of 2.60. Hence, they are significant at 0.05 level. Therefore, the
null hypotheses are rejected. It revealed that methodology subjects opted at B.Ed. level by the
prospective secondary school teachers make a significant difference in their attitude towards
environment in the dimensions of Health and Hygiene and Polluters.
The remaining obtained F-values for df =3 and 1007 are less than the table value of
2.60. Hence, they are not significant at 0.05 level. Therefore, the null hypotheses are
accepted. It can be inferred that methodology subjects opted at B.Ed. level by the prospective
secondary school teachers do not make a significant difference in their attitude towards
environment in the dimensions of Wild life, Forests, Population explosion and Environmental
concern respectively.
As the F-value is not significant at 0.05 level, no further probing of obtaining differences
in different methodology subject of different dimensions i.e. Wild life, Forests, Population
explosion and Environmental concern of environmental attitude is attempted. Since the
F-Value is significant, further probe was attempted to know which methodology groups differ
5
significantly in their different dimensions i.e. Health and hygiene and Polluters of
environment attitude.
Table No.1 (a)
DIFFERENCE IN HEALTH AND HYGIENE WITH RESPECT TO
METHODOLOGY SUBJECTS OPTED AT B.ED. LEVEL
σ
Variable N Mean SD df D D t-values
Biological science 190 15.70 2.49
310 0.07
Physical science 122 15.72 2.32 0.02 0.28
Biological science 190 15.70 2.49
421 0.38
Mathematics 233 15.61 2.52 0.09 0.24
Biological science 190 15.70 2.49 0.54 0.22
654 2.45*
Social studies 466 15.16 2.52
353 0.40
Mathematics 233 15.61 2.52
586 2.33*
Mathematics 233 15.61 2.52 0.45 0.20
697 2.25*
* Significant at 0.05 level
Table No. 2 shows that the obtained t- values (2.45, 2.33 and 2.25) for df = 654, 586
and 697 are greater than 1.96. Hence, they are significant at 0.05 level. Therefore, the null
hypotheses are rejected. The prospective secondary school teachers who opted Social Studies
as their methodology subject differed significantly in their attitude towards environment in
the dimension of Health and hygiene from prospective secondary school teachers who opted
other methodology subjects The mean differences are in favour of prospective secondary
school teachers who opted Biological science, Physical Science and Mathematics as their
methodology subjects. It can be inferred that prospective secondary school teachers who
opted Biological Science, Physical Science and Mathematics as their methodology subjects
have favourable attitude towards environment on the above said dimension when compared
to their counterparts.
The remaining obtained t-values for df =310, 353 and 421 are less than 1.96 and 1.97.
Hence, they are not significant at 0.05 level. Therefore, the null hypotheses are retained. It
can be inferred that prospective secondary school teachers who opted Biological Science as
their methodology subject do not differ significantly from Physical Science and Mathematics
6
methodology subjects in their attitude towards environment in the dimension of Health and
hygiene. And also prospective secondary school teachers who opted Physical Science as their
methodology subject do not differ significantly from Mathematics methodology subject in
their attitude towards environment on the above said dimension.
Table No.1 (b)

DIFFERENCE IN POLLUTERS WITH RESPECT TO METHODOLOGY SUBJECTS
OPTED AT B.ED. LEVEL
σ
Variable N Mean SD df D D t-values
310 0.36
Physical science 122 71.79 6.10
421 1.012
654 2.78**
353 0.57
586 2.03*
Mathematics 233 71.38 7.15 0.87 0.56
697 1.55
* Significant at 0.05 level ** Significant at 0.01 level
Table No. 3 shows that the obtained t-values (2.78, and 2.03) for df = 654, 586 are
greater than 2.58 and 1.96 respectively. Hence, they are significant at 0.01 and 0.05 level.
Therefore, the null hypotheses are rejected. The prospective secondary school teachers who
opted social studies as their methodology subject deferred significantly in their attitude
towards environment in the dimension of polluters from prospective secondary school
teachers who opted other methodology subjects. The mean differences are in favour of
prospective secondary school teachers who opted Biological Science and Physical Science as
their methodology subjects. It can be inferred that prospective secondary school teachers who
opted Biological Science and Physical Science as their methodology subjects have favourable
attitude towards environment on the above said dimension when compared to their
counterparts.
The remaining obtained t-values for df = 310, 353, 421, and 697 are less than the table
value of 1.97 and 1.96. Hence, they are not significant at 0.05 level. Therefore, the null
hypotheses are retained. It can be inferred that prospective secondary school teachers who
opted Science as their methodology subjects do not differ significantly from neighbour
groups in their attitude towards environment on the above said dimension. And also
prospective secondary school teachers who opted mathematics as their methodology subject
do not differ significantly from Social Studies methodology subject in their attitude towards
environment in this dimension.
Hypothesis 2
There is no significant difference in different dimensions of environmental attitude of
prospective secondary school teachers in relation to their locality.
Table No.4
DIFFERENCE IN DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDE
OF PROSPECTIVE SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN RELATION TO
THEIR LOCALITY
Urban Rural
Dimensions of N=414 N=597 D
σ C.R.
E.A.S. D
Mean SD Mean SD
Health and Hygiene 15.38 2.58 15.47 2.44 0.09 0.16 0.56
Wild life 15.76 2.49 15.83 2.49 0.07 0.16 0.44
Forests 14.26 2.63 14.53 2.67 0.27 0.17 1.59
Polluters 71.44 6.35 70.95 6.77 0.49 0.42 1.17
Population explosion 15.76 2.42 15.70 2.40 0.06 0.15 0.40
Environmental concern 41.96 4.67 41.94 4.57 0.02 0.3 0.07
Not significant at 0.05 level
Table No. 4 shows that all the obtained C.R. values are less than 1.96. Hence, they are
not significant at 0.05 level. Therefore, the null hypotheses are retained. It reveals that
locality of prospective secondary school teachers failed to show any significant relation with
different dimensions of environmental attitude.
Major findings of the Study
1. Methodology subjects opted at B.Ed. level by the prospective secondary school
teachers make a significant difference in their attitude towards environment in the
dimensions of Health and hygiene, and Polluters.
2. The prospective secondary school teachers who opted Social studies as their
methodology subject differed significantly from prospective secondary school
teachers who opted Biological Science, Physical Science and Mathematics as their
methodology subjects in their attitude towards environment in the dimension of
Health and hygiene.
3. The prospective secondary school teachers who opted social studies as their
methodology subject deferred significantly from prospective secondary school
teachers who opted Biological Science and Physical Science as their methodology
subjects in their attitude towards environment in the dimension of Polluters.
4. Locality of prospective secondary school teachers failed to show any significant
variation in different dimensions of environmental attitude.
EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
Independent environmental education programmes and activities are to be
incorporated in the teacher training programmes to cater to the learning needs of prospective
teachers of different methodologies as many attitudes are formed because of the influence of
the core subjects they might have studied at the graduate or post graduate level.
REFERENCE
Bhuvaneswara Laxmi, G., and Sailaja, V. V. (2008). Environmental attitude of woman
prospective teachers in relation with attitude towards science. Quoted in Vijayan, A.
(2008). M.Phil Dissertation on “A study of environmental attitude of prospective
secondary school teachers”.
Hassen Taj (2001). Manual for environmental awareness and attitude, Agra, India: Nandani
Enterprises.
Henry E. Garrett. Statistics in Psychology and Education, pp. 241-242, 260, 339-340
Bombay: Published by Mr A.F Saikh for Vakils, Feffer and Simmons Limited.
Leonard Ashok and Mitra, (2008). Comparative study of teachers attitude towards
environmental education and teaching profession. Quoted in Vijayan, A. (2008).
M.Phil Dissertation on “A study of environmental attitude of prospective secondary
school teachers” p.41.
Lokesh Koul, (2007). Methodology of Education Research, (3rd ed), PP. 430-462, New Delhi:
Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd.
Purushotham Reddy, K. and Narasimha Reddy (2007). Environmental Education, NeelKamal
Publications PVT. Ltd., Hyderabad, ISBN: 81-86804-56-0.
Rashmita Yadav (2013). A study of environmental awareness and Attitude of pre- service and
in-service Elementary and secondary school teachers, unpublished thesis, Maharishi
Dayanand University, Rohtak.
Schultz, P. W., Shriver, C., Tabanico, J. J. and Khazian, A. M. (2004). Implicit Connections
with Nature. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24, 31-42.

Sharma, R.A. (2001). Environmental Education, p. 4, Meerut: R. Lall Book Depot.
Sharma, R.A. (2006). Advanced Statistics in Education and Psychology, R. Lall Book Depot:
Meerut (UP), PP. 180-191.
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www.sxcejournal.com, Research and Reflections on Education ISSN 0974-648X Vol.18 No.

DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDE

* Dr. BODA SRINIVASA RAO ** MEESALA SURIBABU

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

Table No.1 (b)

with Nature. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24, 31-42.

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