ASSESSING THE ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY OF SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN PUNJAB

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the environmental literacy level of teachers and examining the significant differences in the mean scores among different demographic groups of teachers on each environmental literacy scale. Moreover this .study also intended to investigate the relationship between secondary school teachers' scone on eight different environmental literacy variables and responsible environmental behaviour and lastly to investigate the best set of predictors of responsible ettv iron mental behaviour for secondary school teachers, Data was collected by administering reliable and valid tool named as Middle School Environmental Literacy Instrument. The instrument assesses the environmental literacy of respondents pertaining to lour general environmental literacy variables i.e. environmental knowledge, environmental dispositions, cognitive skills, and environmental responsible behaviour. These general variables arc further suhdividedintoaioialofninespecific conceptual variables. A Stratified random sample of sixteen hundred and twenty-six secondary school teachers was selected from five district of Punjab. The data was analyzed by using simple descriptive statistics 10 complex inferential statistics involving independent samples i-tesis, analysis of variance (ANOVA). correlational analysis and step wise multiple regression analysis. The result of study indicated that the composite score of respondents on environmental literacy was moderate, furthermore, the scores on individual scales were also found to be moderate except issue analysis skill scale. The individual score on issue analysis skill scale for teachers was found high. Moreover it w as observed that female teachers scored higher than male teachers and private teachers scored higher than government teachers. The teachers who were teaching in o-level systems scored higher than the teachers who were teaching in secondary school systems (matriculation). The scores of teachers teaching science subjects were higher than the teachers who were teaching arts subjects. The teachers who had taken some kind of environmental education training showrcd higher scores than those who never had such training. Similarly academic qualification of teachers also showed significant differences on environmental literacy scores. While the experience and professional education variables did not show any significant difference for the scores of environmental literacy. The results indicated that out of eight environmental literacy variables, environmental sensitivity, perceived knowledge of citizenship action strategics and perceived skill in using citizenship action strategies were significantly correlated with responsible environmental behaviour. The results of multiple regression analysis revealed that for teachers the significant predictors of responsible environmental behaviour are perceived skill in using citizenship action strategy and environmental sensitivity which accounted for 20,6% of the variance,