Levels of nature relatedness in pre-service early childhood teachers in Turkey

Connectedness to nature is a predictor for pro-environmental attitudes and actions. Children today are less connected to nature than prior generations. If the trend is not addressed, then the next generation may be less willing to combat environmental challenges. Early childhood educators have an important role in building nature relatedness (NR), a measure of connection to nature, for the next generation. However, there is a limited understanding of the various levels of NR in early childhood educators themselves, which is crucial for fostering NR in their students. This study assessed NR in pre-service early childhood educators at two Turkish universities to illuminate how pre-service programs can better prepare future educators to promote NR and education for sustainability.

Nature relatedness correlates to a willingness to protect the environment and pro-environmental behaviors. Nature relatedness has three components: 1) NR-self, how an individual internally thinks about their connection to nature; 2) NR-perspective, an individual's worldview on how humans in general should interact with nature; and 3) NR-experience, an individual's direct experience of nature and how comfortable they are in natural environments. NR's expansion is especially important in Turkey because the country is a developing nation with rapidly increasing production, consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions, which are all linked to environmental degradation if not done sustainably. Most pre-service teacher trainings in Turkey have a limited focus on sustainability in their curriculum, and pre-service teachers do not get the opportunity to teach and implement what they have learned until the fourth and final year of their teacher training program.

This study took place at two public universities in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. Participants included 402 undergraduate students in an early childhood teacher education program. In the sample, there was a relatively even distribution between freshman, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, with about a quarter of the participants representing each class. The average age of students was 20.2 years, the vast majority (98.5%) were female, and grew up in urban environments. The Nature Relatedness (NR) Scale was translated to Turkish and adapted to the Turkish culture to measure participants' relationship to nature. The scale had 21 questions in a five-point, Likert-scale format ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). The NR scale measured three factors of natured relatedness: NR-self, NR-perspective, and NR- experience. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze trends in the participants' relationship to nature across the group.

Participants had favorable thoughts about their individual relationship to nature, as seen through their NR-self scores. For example, a majority (69.3%) of participants agreed with the statement that their connection to nature was a significant part of their identity. Most participants also demonstrated pro-environmental worldviews in their NR-perspective scores. They largely agreed with statements focused on the importance of conservation and connections between humans and non-humans. The lowest NR component score was the NR-experience, showing that the majority of participants did not enjoy being in nature regardless of weather, nor were they consistently aware of the natural world in their day-to-day activities. There was not a significant difference in NR scores based on academic year level. NR-self was positively linked to NR-experience and NR-perspective, meaning that NR-self scores could predict similar scores in the other NR components.

This study had a few limitations. It involved a large majority of females, so the results are not representative for other genders. The study focused on undergraduates in an early education teacher training program, so the results are not generalizable to the Turkish population.

Early childhood educators will be responsible for fostering pro-environmental attitudes and NR in their students, so it is important for those teachers to have high NR as well. This study demonstrated that the NR of pre-service early childhood educators has room for improvement, so pre-service teacher education programs should focus on increasing students' connection to nature. Teacher education programs should incorporate more trainings to promote NR-experience or students' levels of desire to be in nature and comfort in the natural world. Education programs should encourage students to participate in outdoor activities, which may be accomplished through collaborations between departments and university clubs or extra-curricular organizations. Especially for pre-service teachers, time outdoors may encourage them to use outdoor spaces for instruction when they become teachers themselves.