Prospective Science Teachers’ Moral Reasoning About Environmental Issues and The Factors That Affect Their Moral Reasoning on This Topic

This study aims to identify prospective science teachers’ moral reasoning about environmental issues as well as the factors that affect this moral reasoning. The qualitative research method was used to achieve this goal. The study group was made up of 213 prospective science teachers studying the 4th year of university at four different state universities. Two scenarios, about the water scarcity problem and climate change, were used to ascertain the moral reasoning patterns of the trainee teachers. The “Moral Decision-Making Interview (MDMI)” protocol developed by Sadler (2003) was used to look into the factors that affect the moral reasoning patterns of the participants. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 14 prospective teachers, 7 males and 7 females. Content analysis was used for the analysis of the data collected. The results of the study showed that the prospective science teachers’ answers to the scenarios about the water scarcity problem and climate change were more centred around non-environmental moral reasoning. When comparing the participants’ approach by how ecocentric or anthropocentric they were, we identified that the anthropocentric approach was more common. We also identified 12 factors that had an impact on the participants’ moral reasoning, most importantly the economy, human health and future, duty and responsibility, environmental values, global power balances etc.