Pre-Service Early Childhood Teachers’ Emotive Reasoning about an Environmental Issue: Using Well-Defined Environmental Cases in Environmental Education

Environmental education should empower learners to internalize the concept that their ecological niche is an integral component of the larger environment, nurturing a moral and ethical understanding of the reciprocity inherent in their relationship with nature. Emotive reasoning is a crucial aspect of this eco-ethical perspective. From this perspective, this study aims to explore pre-service early childhood teachers’ (PECTs) emotive reasoning about an environmental issue. The researchers created a scenario about an environmental issue including ethical dilemmas of protecting wildlife and environment and human needs. The researchers listed nine possible options and asked the participants to choose one or more of these options and elaborate on their responses in their reflections. Fifty-three PECTs participated in this study. The researchers coded the participants’ responses in each category and analyzed the participants’ decision and elaboration levels in their reflections independently. The results indicate an accumulation mostly in the categories of diffusion of responsibility, compassion, anger, and righteous indignation. The results also revealed mostly a high level of judgment and a high and moderate level of elaboration in PECTs’ emotive reasoning. The results suggest that pre-service teacher education should be revised to include well-defined environmental cases to examine pre-service teachers' emotive reasoning, thus increasing their environmental awareness in environmental education. This exploration is also important to understand their emotive reasoning about wildlife issues and enable them to effectively incorporate this understanding into their teaching practices.