Value orientation and environmental behavior of teacher education students

This study aimed to examine the environmental value orientations and environmental behaviors of the Teacher Education students in the Cagayan State University, Philippines and to correlate between the two variables. The study also determined the impact of the gender on the environmental value orientation in the three dimensions: ecocentrism, anthropocentrism and apathy and the respondents’ behavior. Findings indicate that the respondents are more inclined toward ecocentrism and anthropocentrism. Environmental apathy was least preferred. Statistically, there were significant differences according to the sex of the students in ecocentrism and anthropocentrism dimensions in favor of female Teacher Education students. Conversely, the difference arising from the value domain-environmental apathy between male and female is not statistically significant. The level of manifestation of environmental behaviors of female respondents had slightly higher level of manifesting environmental behavior than the male group and both their mean scores had an interpretation of sometimes manifested. The Pearson Coefficient correlation between environmental values in two dimensions (ecocentrism and anthropocentrism) and the environmental behavior resulted a positive value. It means that as the students are more ecocentric and anthropocentric, the stronger they manifest pro-environmental behaviors. On the other hand, apathy domain and environmental behavior was negatively correlated. It means that there were students who have high apathy but on the contrary pro-environmental behavior was manifested. However, there were also those who have low apathy but they did not manifest pro-environmental behavior. Lastly, the study reveals that there is no significant relationship between values in three dimensions and the level of environmental behaviors, which lend partial support to Thompson-Barton's Environmental Value Dimension in relation to the validated self-made Environmental Behavior tool. Generally, findings indicate that as students’ environmental values are inclined toward love and respect to environment for the sake of the nature (ecocentrism) and for the people in the society (anthropocentrism), the lesser they manifest pro-environmental behaviors or vise versa. It may also mean that as the students ’environmental value lean towards environmental apathy, pro-environmental behaviors may still be manifested.