The role of knowledge, attitude, and emotions in Spanish pre-service teachers’ willingness to engage in climate change education

ABSTRACT

This paper provides insights into the indirect effect of subject matter knowledge on the pre-service teachers’ mitigation action of willingness to include climate change in their future teaching practices. Mediation analysis was conducted to assess the mediating role of emotions and attitudes on direct and indirect mitigation actions with a nationally representative sample of 889 pre-service teachers from Spain. The results show that subject matter knowledge has an indirect effect on pre-service teachers’ willingness to teach and is mediated by emotions and attitudes. Mediation analysis also revealed a relationship between emotional engagement and mitigation actions: students who experience stronger emotions are more likely to take direct and indirect mitigation action, but a more environmentally friendly lifestyle (direct mitigation) is not associated with willingness to engage in climate change education (indirect mitigation). We conclude that educators should consider emotions and attitudes when implementing climate change education.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher education
• climate change education
• emotions
• mediation analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2024.2370885.

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to these results received funding from Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) [10.13039/501100011033 FEDER] “Una manera de hacer Europa” under [Grant Agreement No PID2020-114358RB-I00].

Notes on contributors

A. M. Ballegeer

Anne-Marie Ballegeer is a senior lecturer at the department of Mathematics and Science Education of Salamanca University. Her current research interests are science education and education for sustainable development and climate change. She is a member of the “Education Mathematics Science and climate change” EMC³ research group.

E. Ferrari

Enzo Ferrari is a chemist who has created an educational competence through his initial research (Ph.D.) focused on how to mobilise society to tackle climate change. His research interests focus on Natural Science Education, pro-environmental behaviour, and climate change education. Currently he is a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Climate Change & Social Transformation (CAST) of the University of Bath.

D. Corrochano

Diego Corrochano Fernández is an associate professor in the department of Science Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Salamanca. He has a degree (2004) and a PhD (2010) in Geology from the University of Salamanca, and has been a Prometeo postdoctoral researcher at the INIGEMM (Ecuador). He has been a member of the department of Science Education since 2014 and is also a member of the Research Group “Education, Mathematics, Sciences and Climate Change (EMC3)”. Researcher with one six-year research period and with one five-year teaching period (with excellent performance evaluation in the DOCENTIA-USAL programme). His current research lines focus mainly on Environmental Education and Earth Sciences Education.

C. Ruiz

Camilo Ruiz is a physicist working on Climate Change and Education and topics related to science and education. He leads the Research group EMC³ at the Salamanca University, Spain.