Elementary Teachers’ Environmental Education Cognition and Attitude: A Case Study of the Second Largest City in Taiwan

Abstract

This study aims to explore the perceptions and attitudes of national elementary school teachers toward environmental education to understand the difference between different teachers’ background variables on environmental education cognition and attitude and the correlation between cognition and attitude. This research adopts the questionnaire survey method and takes elementary school teachers from the second largest city in Taiwan, Taichung City, as the research sample. Stratified random sampling was adopted, and 636 questionnaires were distributed. In total, 536 questionnaires were effectively recovered, and the effective recovery rate was 84.27%. The descriptive statistical analysis of sample data, an independent sample T-test, a one-way analysis of variance, Scheffe’s comparison test, and Pearson’s product-difference correlation were used for analysis. The study results are: (1) Elementary school teachers in Taichung City have good environmental education and teaching cognition and environmental issue cognition. (2) The attitudes toward the environmental education of elementary school teachers in Taichung are positive and active. (3) Senior and experienced elementary school teachers in Taichung City have a high awareness of environmental education due to their participation in many workshops and environmental protection activities. Therefore, there are significant differences in the cognition and attitude of environmental education from elementary school teachers. (4) There is a significant correlation between the cognition and attitude of elementary school teachers in Taichung City toward environmental education. This research shows that teachers with more senior teaching experience have better cognition and attitude toward environmental education.