Abstract:

This study aims to investigate secondary school students' attitudes and demographic variables (gender, grade level, receiving environmental education, participation in an environmental project' environment and reading books about the environment) that are believed to influence these attitudes. The study was designed using the descriptive survey model and data were collected from 144 fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade students in a public school in the central Black Sea region. The data of the research were collected with the "Attitude Scale for Sustainable Development" developed by Kaya (2013). In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics (mean, frequency, percentage, and standard deviation), independent samples T-test, single-factor variance analysis (One-Way ANOVA), Levene's test, Welch's test, and Games-Howell's test were used. As a result of the research, it was determined that the total attitude scores of secondary school students for sustainable development were high. Similarly, it was found that the total attitude scores of the scale for the sub-factors were high. It was found that the overall scores for secondary school students' attitudes towards sustainable development showed a statistically significant difference in favour of the eighth grade in terms of 'grade level'. However, it was found that the total scores of secondary school students' attitude towards sustainable development did not show any significant difference with respect to the variables’ 'gender', 'receiving environmental education', 'participating in an environmental project' and 'reading books about the environment'. It can be concluded that the findings from the study will contribute to the literature to determine the variables that influence secondary school students' attitudes towards sustainable development.

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