Exploring Taiwanese teachers’ perceptions toward and knowledge of climatic hazard mitigation

Abstract

This study reports the results of a national representative survey in Taiwan on the primary and secondary school teachers’ perceptions toward and knowledge of climatic hazard mitigation (CHM). Climatic Hazard Mitigation Inventory (CHMI) was developed by the researchers and content validated by a panel of experts including three university professors and two high school teachers. The CHMI instrument consisted of five subtests (80 items) and was pilot tested to a group of 28 pre-service earth science teachers in a teacher education institute in Taiwan. It was thereafter revised and employed to survey 183 randomly selected in-service primary and secondary school teachers in Taiwan. Every eligible science teacher in the target population had a known, positive probability of being drawn into the sample. The CHMI instrument was found to be an appropriate measure to examine teachers’ perceptions toward and knowledge of CHM. The results of the survey also suggested that both primary and secondary school teachers possessed a reasonable level of CHM knowledge. However, significant differences existed in teachers’ CHM knowledge between primary and secondary school teachers. Overall, teachers held positive perceptions toward CHM.