PRE-SERVICE CHEMISTRY TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE OF GREEN CHEMISTRY PRINCIPLES AND ATTITUDE AS DETERMINANT OF THEIR BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Abstract

The attitude and behaviour of individual towards the environment today would determine how the environment will respond to us in the future. Hence this study sought to examine pre-service chemistry teachers’ knowledge of green chemistry principles and attitude towards environmental sustainability. The research adopted the descriptive survey of the correlation type, and 750 pre-service teachers were randomly selected for the study. A validated questionnaire was distributed to 815 pre-service teachers in six federal Schools comprises of University and Colleges of Education in Nigeria with 750 duly filled and returned. Mean, Standard Deviation, Multiple Regression, were used for data analysis. Findings revealed that pre-service teachers in the universities possessed low knowledge of green chemistry principle, it was also discovered that the pre-service teachers had favourable attitude and behavioural intention to act in a manner that promote environmental sustainability. However, it was discovered that the pre-service teacher’s behavioural intention does not translate to their actual behaviour towards the environment. The study found relative significant contributions of knowledge was (ß=.190; t=1.212; p<0.05) and attitude was (ß=.233; t=1.523; p<0.05) to the prediction of pre-service teachers’ behaviour towards promoting environmental sustainability in Nigeria. The study therefore recommended among others that the schools where teachers are trained for the future should restructure their curriculum to incorporate sustainable development concepts that inform the trainee teachers of the significant roles they can play in achieving the sustainable development goals and most importantly promote environmental culture in their classroom