An Assessment of Turkish Elementary Teachers in the Context of Education for Sustainable Development

Abstract

The purpose of the current study is to describe beliefs, perceived barriers and teaching strategy preference of elementary teachers with respect to education for sustainable development. The sample of research survey consisted of 211 elementary teachers who are also participant of projects on environmental education. The data were collected by three different scale entitled “beliefs on education for sustainable development scale”, “barriers towards education for sustainable development scale” and “techniques in education for sustainable development scale”. Items of the scales were examined taking into account mean scores, standard deviation, frequencies and percentages. Results revealed that even teachers face many barriers, they have favorable beliefs regarding education for sustainable development. These beliefs were in line with the standards portrayed by international reports. In addition, it was implied that teachers’ beliefs may be shaped by the educational projects they participated in