Preservice science teachers’ ecological value orientation: A comparative study between Indonesia and Korea

Abstract

The current study aimed to examine differences in ecological values between Indonesian and Korean preservice science teachers. Fifteen items from revised-New Ecological Paradigm based on value orientations were used as the research instrument. Two hundred seventy-three preservice science teachers participated in the study. Rasch analyses of dimensionality, item fit, and differential item functioning were used to explore the validity of the instrument. The independent-sample T-test and Pearson’s correlation test were utilized to compare data from the two countries. Preservice science teachers from the two different countries showed significant differences in only one of the three value orientations, which is egoistic value. Relationships among cultural, educational, and economic factors, as well as environmental values in these countries are discussed to fully explore the findings.

Keywords:

• Cross-cultural
• ecological values
• new ecological paradigm
• preservice science teachers

Acknowledgments

We thank the two anonymous reviewers who reviewed our work thoroughly and gave suggestions that helped in the development of our study. We also thank to Dr. Sein Shin for her significant and invaluable comments on the first version of the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. NRF-2017R1C1B1005152).