Abstract

In Turkey, the number of environmental education studies on young children is not sufficient. This is primarily due to the fact that scales for measuring the pro-environmental behaviors of young children are quite limited in number and are not common. This research has two aims which to carry out the reliability-validity studies of preschool environment scale, and to analyze the pro-environmental behaviors of 5-6 years old children with regard to different variables (age, gender, socio-economic level). The research included 171 children of 5-6 years of age receiving preschool education in the province of Denizli, Turkey. The Children's Attitudes Toward the Environment Scale-Preschool Version (CATES-PV) is a 15-item scale that one can use to assess the degree to which children's attitudes are pro-environmental. Study results have indicated that the CATES-PV Turkish Version is a reliable and valid measurement tool. The scale may be used to determine the pro-environmental behaviors of 5-6 years old Turkish children. This study provides a significant contribution to the field for further studies to be conducted in Turkey on the pro-environmental behaviors of young children. It is observed that the pro-environmental behaviors of the children included in the research differ according to age and socio-economic level. No difference was found between pro-environmental behaviors of children in terms of the gender variable.

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