Examination of Sustainable Development Awareness of Pre-Service Social Studies Teachers

This study was conducted to examine pre-service social studies teachers' awareness of sustainable development. The study group of the research included 170 pre-service teachers studying at Gazi University, Gazi Faculty of Education, Department of Social Studies Education in 2022-2023 academic year. The survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the study. In the data collection phase of the study, a personal information form and the "Sustainable Development Awareness Scale" (SDAS) developed by Atmaca, Kiray and Pehlivan (2019) were used. Whether the data obtained for the purpose of the study were normally distributed was determined by Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests in the categories of economic sustainability, social sustainability, environmental sustainability and total score. Since the data were not normally distributed, Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis H test, which are non-parametric tests, were used in the analysis. As a result of the research, it was determined that there was a significant difference in favor of female pre-service teachers in terms of awareness levels in economic, social and environmental sustainability sub-dimensions and total scores. In the analyses conducted according to the age variable, while there was no significant difference in the economic and environmental sustainability sub-dimensions and total scores, a significant difference was found in favor of pre-service teachers aged 24 and above in the social sustainability sub-dimension. In the analyses made according to the grade level variable, a significant difference was found in favor of 2nd grade pre-service teachers in economic sustainability, environmental sustainability sub-dimensions and total scores, and in favor of 4th grade pre-service teachers in social sustainability sub-dimension. In the analyses conducted according to the variable of having received training on sustainable development, a significant difference was found in favor of pre-service teachers who received training on this subject in the economic sustainability and social sustainability sub-dimensions and total scores. In line with these results, it is suggested to conduct studies involving different participant groups to further investigate the effects of variables on the level of awareness on sustainable development; to conduct studies to determine the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of students at different levels of education on sustainable development; to further investigate the effects of sustainable development education on the awareness, attitude and behavior levels of pre-service teachers; to use active learning methods such as project-based learning in the education process to raise students' awareness on sustainable development; to organize activities to develop students' critical thinking skills on sustainable development issues and to create projects to raise students' awareness about local and global issues related to sustainable development.