The Relationship between Personal Values and Environmental Behaviours and Thoughts of High School Students

Abstract

The aim of the study is to determine the relationship between high school students' personal values and environmental behaviors and thoughts. The study group consists of 253 (82 female and 171 male) high school students, who participated in the study on a voluntary basis, from the city of Siirt, Turkey. Correlative survey model is used in this study. To determine high school students' personal values Schwartz values inventory is used. The survey is developed by Schwartz and adapted to Turkish by Kusdil and Kagitci (2000). For environmental behavior and thought sub scale including environmental attitude scale developed by Uzun and Saglam (2006) is used. To analyze the results, descriptive statistics, t test for independent groups, correlations and regression is used. The analysis study showed that the more important personal values among high school students are self-direction and achievement values. Moreover, it was found that there is a significant and positive relation between personal values and environmental behaviors and thoughts of secondary school students.