Critical Thinking Dispositions as a Predictor for High School Students’ Environmental Attitudes

Year 2022, Volume: 8 Issue: 1, 75 - 85, 31.01.2022

Ali Orhan

https://doi.org/10.21891/jeseh.1056832

Abstract

This non-experimental quantitative study aimed to determine if high school students’ critical thinking (CT) dispositions and environmental attitudes differ by gender, father, and mother’s educational background and their CT dispositions are significant predictors of environmental attitudes. UF/EMI Critical Thinking Disposition Instrument and Environmental Attitude Scale were used to collect data in this study carried out with 139 high school students. It was found out that students’ CT dispositions did not differ by gender, father, and mother’s educational background. Also, while students’ environmental attitudes differed by gender in favor of females, they did not differ by mother and father’s educational background. Besides, engagement, maturity, and innovativeness were significant predictors of the students’ environmental attitudes. A positive relationship was found between students’ CT dispositions and environmental attitude scores and engagement, maturity, and innovativeness together explained 31% of the total variance on their environmental attitudes.

Keywords

Environmental attitudes, Critical thinking dispositions, High school students, Gender, Multiple regression analysis

References

• Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211.
• Amin, S., Utaya, S., Bachri, S., Sumarmi, & Susilo, S., (2020). Effect of problem-based learning on critical thinking skills and environmental attitude. Journal for the Education of Gifted Young Scientists, 8(2), 743-755. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.17478/jegys.650344.
• Arnocky, S. & M. Stroink. (2010). Gender differences in environmentalism: The mediating role of emotional empathy. Current Research in Social Psychology, 16(9), 1–14.
• Aybek, B. & Ekinci, Ö. (2010). Analysis of the empathy and the critical thinking disposition of the teacher candidates. Elementary Education Online, 9(2), 816-827.
• Ballantyne, R., Connell, S., & Fien, J. (1998). Students as catalysts of environmental change: A framework for researching intergenerational influence through environmental education. Environmental Education Research, 12(3-4), 1-11.
• Blocker, T. J. & Eckberg, D. L. (1989). Environmental issues as women’s issues: General concerns and local hazards. Social Science Quarterly, 70, 586–593.
• Cardinale, B. J., Duffy, J. E., Gonzalez, A., Hooper, D. U., Perrings, C., Venail, P., & Naeem, S. (2012). Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity. Nature, 486(7401), 59–67.
• Coertjens, L., Pauw, J. B., Maeyer, S., & Petegem, P. V. (2010). Do schools make a difference in their students’ environmental attitudes and awareness? Evidence from pisa 2006. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 8(3), 497–522. doi:10.1007/s10763-010-9200-0.
• Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Lewrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Çolak, İ., Türkkaş-Anasız, B., Yorulmaz, Y. İ., & Duman, A. (2019). The role of gender, grade level, and parents’ educational attainment variables on teacher candidates’ critical thinking dispositions: A meta-analysis. e-International Journal of Educational Research, 10(1), 67-86.
• De Groot, J. I. M. & Steg, L. (2008). Value orientations to explain beliefs related to environmental significant behavior: How to measure egoistic, altruistic, and biospheric value orientations. Environment and Behavior, 40, 330–354.
• Diekmann, A. & Franzen, A. (1999). The wealth of nations and environmental concern. Environment and Behavior, 31, 540–549.
• Dlamini, S., Tesfamichael, S. G., & Mokhele, T. (2021). Socio-demographic determinants of environmental attitudes, perceptions, place attachment, and environmentally responsible behaviour in Gauteng province, South Africa. Scientific African, 12, 1-9.
• Duarte, R., Escario, J. J., & Sanagustín, M. V. (2017). The influence of the family, the school, and the group on the environmental attitudes of European students. Environmental Education Research, 23(1), 23-42. doi:10.1080/13504622.2015.1074660.
• Dunlap, R. E. & York, R. (2008). The globalisation of environmental concern and the limits of the postmaterialist values explanation: evidence from four multinational surveys. The Sociological Quarterly, 49, 529–563.
• Ekici, G. (2005). Investigation of high school students’ attitudes toward environmental education. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 18, 71-83.
• Facione, P. A., Giancarlo, C. A., Facione, N. C., & Gainen, J. (1995). The disposition toward critical thinking. Journal of General Education, 44(1), 1-25.
• Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A. G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G* power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39(2), 175–191.
• Ferah, D. (2000). Investigation of perception of problem solving skills and problem solving approaches of the Turkish army academy cadets in terms of gender, grade, academic success and being leader [Unpublished master`s thesis]. Hacettepe University.
• Fishbein, M. & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Addison-Wesley Pub. Co, Reading.
• Franzen, A. (2003). Environmental attitudes in international comparison: An analysis of the ISSP Surveys 1993 and 2000. Social Science Quarterly, 84, 297–308.
• Franzen, A. & Meyer, R. (2010). Environmental attitudes in cross-national perspective: A multilevel analysis of the ISSP 1993 and 2000. European Sociological Review, 26, 219–234.
• Franzen, A. & Vogl, D. (2013a). Two decades of measuring environmental attitudes: a comparative analysis of countries. Global Environmental Change, 23, 1001–1008.
• Franzen, A. & Vogl, D. (2013b). Acquiescence and the willingness to pay for environmental protection: A comparison of the ISSP, WVS, and EVS. Social Science Quarterly, 94(3), 637-659.
• Fua, J. L., Wekke, I. S., Sabara, Z., & Nurlila, R. U. (2018). Development of environmental care attitude of students through religion education approach in Indonesia. IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 175, 1-7.
• Gifford, R. & Sussman, R. (2012). Environmental attitudes. Susan D. Clayton (Ed) In The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Conservation Psychology (p. 65-80). Oxford University Press.
• Girot, E. A. (2000). Graduate nurses: Critical thinkers or better decision makers? Journal of Advanced Nursing, 31(2), 288-297.
• Gökçe, N., Kaya, E., Aktay, S., & Özden, M. (2007). Elementary students’ attitudes towards environment. Elementary Education Online, 6(3), 452-468.
• Gökmen, A. (2021). The effect of gender on environmental attitude: A meta-analysis study. Journal of Pedagogical Research, 5(1), 243-257.
• Gürbüz, H., Kışoğlu, M., & Erkol, M. (2007). Assessment of the biology teacher candidates’ environmental attitudes for informal and formal learning surroundings. Bayburt Faculty of Education Journal, 2(3),74-84.
• Güven, G. & Çakır, N. K. (2019). The relation between teachers’ attitudes towards renewable energy sources and critical thinking dispositions. Journal of Baltic Science Education, 18(5), 717-731.
• Hausbeck, K. W., Milbrath, L. W., & Enright, S. M. (1992). Environmental knowledge, awareness, and concern among 11th-grade students: New York state. Journal of Environmental Education, 24, 27-34.
• Hofreiter, T. D., Monroe, M. C., & Stein, T. V. (2007). Teaching and evaluating critical thinking in an environmental context. Applied Environmental Education & Communication, 6(2), 149-157.
• Irani, T., Rudd, R., Gallo, M., Ricketts, J., Friedel, C., & Rhoades, E. (2007). Critical thinking instrumentation manual. http://step.ufl.edu/resources/critical_thinking/ctmanual.pdf.
• Istead, L. L. (2009). Intergenerational eco-education: An exploration of child influence or parental environmental behavior [Unpublished master’s thesis]. Royal Roads University.
• Iverson, H. & Rundmo, T. O. (2001). Environmental concern and environmental behavior among the Norwegian public. Journal of Risk Research, 5, 265-279.
• Kemmelmeier, M., Krol, G., & Kim, Y. H. (2002). Values, economics and pro-environmental attitudes in 22 societies. Cross-Cultural Research, 36, 256–285.
• Keniger, L. E., Gaston, K. J., Irvine, K. N., & Fuller, R. A. (2013). What are the benefits of interacting with nature? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 10(3), 913–935.
• Khandaghi, M. A., Pakmehr, H., & Amiri, E. (2011). The status of college students' critical thinking disposition in humanities. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 15, 1866–1869.
• Kılıç, H. E. & Şen, A. İ. (2014). Turkish adaptation study of UF/EMI Critical Thinking Disposition Instrument. Education and Science, 39(176), 1-12.
• Kökdemir, D. (2003). Decision making and problem solving under uncertainty [Unpublished PhD thesis]. Ankara University.
• Lee, P. L. (2016). Misconceptions and biases in German students’ perception of multiple energy sources: Implications for science education. International Journal of Science Education, 38(6), 1306-1056.
• Lee, T. M., Markowitz, E. M., Howe, P. D., Ko, C. Y., & Leiserowitz, A. A. (2015). Predictors of public climate change awareness and risk perception around the world. Nature Climate Change, 5, 1014–1020.
• Liu, N. Y., Hsu, W. Y., Hung, C. A., Wu, P. L., & Pai, H. C. (2019). The effect of gender role orientation on student nurses’ caring behaviour and critical thinking. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 89, 18-23.
• Liu, S. Y., Yeh, S. S. C., Liang, S. W., Fang, W. T. & Tsai, H. M. (2015). A national investigation of teachers’ environmental literacy as a reference for promoting environmental education in Taiwan. The Journal of Enviromental Education, 46(2), 114- 132.
• Mahmoud, A. S. & Mohamed, H. A. (2017). Critical thinking disposition among nurses working in puplic hospitals at Port-Said Governorate. International Journal of Nursing Sciences, 4, 128-134.
• Marquart-Pyatt, S.T. (2008). Are there similar sources of environmental concern? Comparing industrial countries. Social Science Quarterly, 89, 1312–1335.
• Mengi Us, F. (2019). An action research to develop environmental awareness and critical thinking skills in secondary school students with envi̇ronmental educati̇on for sustai̇nable development [Unpublished PhD thesis]. Çukurova University.
• McStay, J. R. & Dunlap, R. E. (1983). Male-female differences in concern for environmental quality. International Journal of Women's Studies, 6(4), 291-301.
• Meyer, R. & Liebe, U. (2010). Are the affluent prepared to pay for the planet? Explaining willingness to pay for public and quasi-private environmental goods in Switzerland. Population and Environment 32, 42–65.
• Mifsud, M. C. (2011). An investigation on the environmental knowledge, attitudes and behavior of Maltese youth. US-China Education Review, 3, 413-422.
• Milfont, T. L. & Gouveia, V. V. (2006). Time perspective and values: An exploratory study of their relations to environmental attitudes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 26, 72-82.
• Mohai, P. (1992). Men, women, and the environment: An examination of the gender gap in environmental concern and activism. Society & Natural Resources, 5, 1–19.
• Muhsilin, M., Rosiana, I., Rahayuningsih, Y., & Suharyana, Y. (2019). The efforts to improve environmental behavior and critical thinking of students through guided inquiry-based learning on environmental education-based science. Jurnal Penelitian dan Pembelajaran IPA, 5(2), 202-218.
• Opitz, S. (2016). Students’ progressing understanding of the energy concept: An analysis of learning in biological and crossdisciplinary contexts [Unpublished PhD thesis]. Christian-Albrechts Universitat.
• Orhan, A. (2021). The effect of critical thinking teaching with different approaches on high school students' critical thinking skills, dispositions and environmental attitudes [Unpublished PhD thesis]. Düzce University.
• Özdemir, S. M. (2005). Assessing university students’ critical thinking skills for some variables. The Journal of Turkish Educational Sciences, 3(3), 297-316.
• Pallant, J. (2001). SPSS survival manual. Open University Press.
• Pauw, J. B. & Petegem, P. V. (2010). A Cross-national perspective on youth environmental attitudes. The Environmentalist, 30(2), 133–144. doi:10.1007/s10669-009-9253-1.
• Polat, M. (2017). Examining primary school teachers'critical thinking disposition and creativity levels in terms of difference variable [Unpublished master’s thesis]. Adıyaman University.
• Poortinga, W., Steg, L., & Vlek, C. (2004). Values, environmental concern, and environmental behavior: A study into household energy use. Environment and Behavior, 36, 70–93.
• Puspitasari, E., Sumarmi, S., & Amirudin, A. (2016). Integrasi Berpikir Kritis dan Peduli Lingkungan melalui Pembelajaran Geografi dalam Membentuk Karakter Peserta Didik SMA. Education Journal: Theory, Research, and Development, 1(2), 122–126.
• Rebolj, N. & Devetak, I. (2013). 12-year-old students' attitude towards and views about the environmental problems. European Science Education Research Association, ESERAe_Book_2013.
• Ricket, J. & Rudd, R. (2004). Critical thinking skills of FFA leaders. Journal of Southern Agricultural Education Research, 54(1), 7-20.
• Rodriquez, G. (2000). Demographics and disposition as predictors of the application of critical thinking skills in nursing practice [Unpublished PhD thesis]. Colorado State University.
• Sadık, F., & Çakan, H. (2010). Biyoloji bölümü öğrencilerinin çevre bilgisi ve çevre sorunlarına yönelik tutum düzeyleri. Journal of Çukurova University Institute of Social Sciences, 19(1), 351-365.
• Saka, M. (2016). A study of preservice teachers’ critical thinking dispositions as predictors of environmental ethics approaches. Sakarya University Journal of Education, 6(3), 100-115.
• Sakschewski, M., Eggert, S., Schneider, S., & Bogeholz, S. (2014). Students’ socioscientific reasoning and decision-making on energy-related issues-development of a measurement instrument. International Journal of Science Education, 36(14), 2291-2313.
• Schultz, P. W., Shriver, C., Tabanico, J. J., & Khazian, A. M. (2004). Implicit connections with nature. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24, 31-42.
• Spellmann, G., Field, K. & Sinclair, J. (2003). An investigation into UK higher education students’ knowledge of global climatic change. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 12(1), 6-17.
• Steg, L., Bolderdijk, J. W., Keizer, K., & Perlaviciute, G. (2014a). An integrated framework for encouraging pro-environmental behavior: The role of values, situational factors and goals. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 38, 104–115.
• Steg, L., De Groot, J. I. M., Dreijerink, L., Abrahamse, W., & Siero, F. (2011). General antecedents of personal norms, policy acceptability, and intentions: The role of values, worldviews, and environmental concern. Society and Natural Resources, 24(4), 349-36.
• Steg, L., Perlaviciute, G., Van der Werff, E., & Lurvink, J. (2014b). The significance of hedonic values for environmentally-relevant attitudes, preferences and actions. Environment and Behavior, 46(2), 163-192.
• Stevens, J. (1996). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences. Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Şahin, K. (2018b). Examining the critical thinking and empathy tendencies of sports high school students [Unpublished master’s thesis]. Gazi University.
• Şahin, M. (2015). Investigation of secondary school students' environmental literacy levels [Unpublished master’s thesis]. Aksaray University.
• Şama, E. (2003). Teacher candidates’ attitudes toward environmental problems. Gazi University Journal of Gazi Educational Faculty, 23(2), 99-110.
• Tabachnick, B. G. & Fidell, L. S. (2012). Using multivariate statistics (6th ed.). Pearson.
• Tikka, P. M., Kuitunen, M. T., & Tynys, S. M. (2000). Effects of educational background on students’ attitudes, activity levels, and knowledge concerning the environment. The Journal of Environmental Education, 31(3), 12–19.
• Tümkaya S., Aybek, B., & Aldağ, H. (2009). An investigation of university students’ critical thinking disposition and perceived problem solving skills. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 36, 57-74.
• Uzun, N., Gilbertson, K. L., Keleş, Ö., & Ratinen, I. (2019). Environmental attitude scale for secondary school, high school and undergraduate students: validity and reliability study. Journal of Education in Science, Environment and Health, 5(1), 79-90.
• Walsh, C. M. (1996). Critical thinking disposition of university students in practice disciplines (nursing, education and business) and nonpractice disciplines (English, history and psychology): An exploratory study [Unpublished PhD thesis)]. University of Maryland.
• Walsh, C. M. & Hardy, R. C. (1999). Dispositional differences in critical thinking related to gender and academic major. Journal of Nursing Education, 38(4), 149-155.
• Vlek, C. & Steg, L. (2007). Human behavior and environmental sustainability: Problems, driving forces and research topics. Journal of Social Issues, 63(1), 1-19.
• Yavuz, E. (2019). Investigation of environmental attitudes of secondary school students in terms of different variables [Unpublished master’s thesis]. Gazi University.
• Yüksel, Y. & Yıldız, B. (2019). Investigating students’ attitudes towards environment in regard to numerous variables. International Journal of Field Education, 5(1), 88-110. Zhang, J. (1994). Environmental hazards in the Chinese public’s eyes. Risk Analysis, 14, 163-167.
• Zelezny, L. C., Chua, P. P., & Aldrich, C. (2000). New ways of thinking about environmentalism: Elaborating on gender differences in environmentalism. Journal of Social Issues, 56(3), 443–457. doi:10.1111/0022-4537.00177.