ASSESSMENT OF TEACHER EDUCATION STUDENTS’ CLIMATE CHANGE AWARENESS AND ADAPTATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA
Monday Sampson
Department of Social Science Education
University of Nigeria, Nsukka
And
Prof. Samuel Agozie Ezeudu
Department of Social Science Education
University of Nigeria, Nsukka
Abstract
This paper focused on the climate change awareness and adaptation needs of teacher education students in Nigeria as a 21st century global challenge. Four research questions and four hypotheses guided the study. The study involved all the teacher education students in the Faculty of Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Simple random sampling technique was used to sample two hundred (200) students. This sample is made up of one hundred and twenty female students and eighty male students. Two structured questionnaire developed by the researchers were used for data collection. The instruments were titled “Climate Change Awareness Scale (CCAS) and Climate Change Adaptation Scale (CCADS). The instruments were subjected to face validation by three experts. Two of the experts are in Environmental Education while one of the experts is in Measurement and Evaluation all in University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The reliability of the instruments was established using Cronbach Alpha method. Satisfactory reliability of index of 0.78 and 0.82 were obtained for CCAS and CCADS respectively. Mean score and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t-test was used to test the research hypotheses. The findings of the study were that there is significant difference between male and female students climate change mean awareness score; and that there is a significant difference between students who take environmental education content and those who do not take with respect to their climate change awareness and adaptation.Based on the findings of the study, relevant recommendations were made.
Key words: Climate Change, Awareness, Adaptation, and Gender.