Using an Experience of the European Union to Form Future Preschool Teachers’ Ecological Competence

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the theoretical and methodological aspects of the future preschool educators’ ecological competence formation with using the European Union’s experience in environmental safety and education. The aim of the study is to verify the effectiveness of the implementing the European Union’s experience in the process of the future preschool educators’ ecological competence forming. The authors analyzed domestic and foreign researches on the problem of teacher’s ecological competence. Based on the analysis of literary sources and own experience of teaching activity in the institution of higher education authors gave the definition of the concept "future preschool teacher’s ecological competence", identified and characterized its structural components. A complex of theoretical (analysis, synthesis, comparison, modelling, systematization, generalization) and empirical (testing, observation, pedagogical experiment; methods of mathematical statistics) methods was used to achieve the aim of the research. 92 students (experimental group (n = 45) and control group (n = 47)) of Oleksandr Dovzhenko Hlukhiv National Pedagogical University participated in the study. It has been determined that the teaching the course "Implementing the Strategy of Environmental Security: Integration of European Experience" to the students of the experimental group had a positive effect on the levels of their ecological competence formation.