환경태도와 관광경험이 환경의식 및 환경보전의식에 미치는 영향

Abstract

Objectives The purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating effect of tourism experience in the process of pre-service early childhood teachers’ environmental attitudes influencing on environmental awareness and environmental conservation awareness.
 Methods The subjects of the study are 205 students in the Department of Early Childhood Education at A University located in Gyeonggi-do and B University located in Chungcheong-do. The Pearson correlation coefficient analysis and structural relationship between the research variables were analyzed and presented using SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 23.0. To find out direct and indirect effects and total effects with structural equation and the mediating effect in both-sided verification of 95% confidence intervals was investigated by the bootstrap estimation method.
 Results The main findings are as follows. First, environmental awareness and environmental conservation awareness showed a statistically positive correlation with environmental attitudes and the sub-areas, environmental ethics, local residents' consideration, nature conservation, and harmony with local natural culture, while but there was no statistically significant correlation with animal and plant affinity. There was a statistically positive correlation between environmental awareness and environmental conservation awareness. Second, it was found that environmental attitudes do not directly affect environmental awareness, but indirectly affect. It also directly and indirectly affects environmental conservation awareness, and directly affect tourism experiences. Tourism experiences were found to directly affect environmental awareness and environmental conservation awareness. Third, As a result of verifying the mediating effect, it was found that tourism experiences completely mediated in the process of environmental attitude affecting environmental awareness, and partially mediated in the process of environmental attitude affecting environmental conservation awareness.
 Conclusions The results of this study reaffirmed that tourism experience is an important factor that helps improve environmental awareness. Thus, I explored and suggested a way to raise pre-service early childhood teachers’ awareness of environment through meaningful experiences.