Abstract:

This research aims to assess attitudes and responsible behaviors of first grade primary school students. The sample of the research consisted of 1200 students of fourth and fifth grade who were selected from various 15 public schools in Bingöl. Stratified sample were selected to decide sample size. The data was obtained from application of the Environmental Attitudes Scale (EAS) and Environmental Responsible Behavior Scale (ERBS) were improved by researcher. EAS that comprises 32 items and three dimensional ERBS; in total 21 items were developed by the researcher. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of internal coherence was used in order to determine the reliability of the applied scale for the first grade second term students. For the first scale .84, for the sub-dimension of the environmental interest of the second scale .84, for the cleanness-saving sub-dimension .69, and for the sub-dimension of animal love .55 Cronbach's alpha value coefficient was calculated. It was calculated .86 Cronbach's alpha value for the whole of the second scale. Dispersion characteristics of the quantitative data were examined and the data was analyzed by using SPSS 17.0 statistical package program. Descriptive statistics, Mann Whitney U test, and Kruskal Wallis test were conducted to analyze the data. The main finding of this research is that, there were no differences observed between the class variable in the students' attitudes and responsible behaviors towards the environment. But according to the students' gender and settlement of the students, there were found significant differences between attitudes and responsible behavior towards the environment.

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