AN INVESTIGATION OF FACTORS AFFECTING PRE-SERVICE SCIENCE TEACHERS AWARENESS IN RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES

Abstract

Due to increasing energy demands and environmental problems in burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas), interest on renewable energy sources has been increased. Scientists try to find new and more effective ways to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy resources. Science teachers’ knowledge, attitude and awareness plays an important role for the future. Because, they will be bringing up future generations of school children so that energy can be utilized efficiently. Few studies have explored teachers’ awareness level about renewable energy resources, but there is no available instrument that assesses all science teachers’ (physics, chemistry and biology) renewable energy awareness. Pre-service science teachers were asked to write a composition about their feelings, opinions, and attitudes towards renewable energy and explorative literature study was conducted to gather an initial pool of items. Item selection took place using qualitative and quantitative methods. Expert-analysis was used for screening the relevance. Exploratory factor analysis with promax rotation was used to determine construct validity and Cronbach's coefficient alpha determined the scale's internal consistency reliability. The instrument demonstrated high internal consistency (alpha 0.90). Exploratory factor analysis yielded a five-component structure termed Expectations from authorities, Relationship between renewable energy and environment, Comparison of renewable energy resources with fossil fuels, environmental awareness and Suitability of country for renewable energy; each sub-scale demonstrated satisfactory consistency: 0.85; 0.82; 0.71; 0.76; 0.82 respectively. The 32-item scale is easy to complete and to administer. This study has also investigated effect of gender and subject of pre-service science teachers on the awareness scale, and the relationship between effect of teachers’ subject and awareness of pre-service science teachers. The development of a new and reliable awareness scale to identify pre-service science teachers’ attitudes towards renewable energy resources will enable researchers to explore the relationships between science teachers' attitudes and their demographic and education-related characteristics.