Opinion And Attitudes Towards Environmental Problems of Environmental Health Pre-License Program’s Students in Turkey

This study was carried out with totally 223 students who were got training in the 2015-2016 academic year in Acibadem, Adnan Menderes, Hakkâri, Sinop and Igdir Universities’ Health Services Vocational Schools (HSVS) which they provide education in the Environmental Health Technician profession in Turkey. Distribution of participants as to demographic features are 108 female of the students and 107 male, and also 95 of them 1st grade 128 of them 2nd grade.One of the universities is foundation (Acibadem HSVS), the other four are state universities. There are two type educations formal and informal in Igdir and Sinop HSVS. A Five-point Likert type scale which is consist of 21 questions was used to determine the attitudes and behaviors of students against environmental problems. The average of attitude scores obtained were compared with different demographic factors such as the graduate high school type, the place where they have lived long period, the educational status of their parents, the level of income and whether they previously taken courses related to the environment. The total attitude scores ranged from 58 to 105 and the average attitude score was found 83.96.Attitudes based on gender points in favor of women is significantly different (p <.05). When the average attitude scores of the participant schools to the survey study were examined, it was determined that Aydin HSVS was the highest with 87.21 and also the only school was above the average. Students of the environmental health technicians showed the highest sensitivity towards the problems that could be possible due to thinning of the ozone layer in the questionnaire. On the other hand, the question which is the lowest average score in the questionnaire is “Any institution or organization, including the United Nations should not interfere to use of the countries’ natural resources as they wish.”. So the students indicated to do not find it appropriate to intervene by any foreign organization, including global environmental organizations while they using of the countries’ natural resources.