Attitudes of preservice teachers: Design and validation of an attitude scale toward environmental education

A scale has been built and validated for Environmental Education in Spain which allows to explore teachers' attitudes regarding two topics: i) their responsibility and commitment to sustainability; and ii) their involvement in Environmental Education. It was validated with Spanish preservice teachers (N = 889). Its internal consistency is good (alpha = .804, glb = .875, Omega = .810). Principal component analysis found a structure with five interrelated factors (with the limitation of having one factor with only two items). Confirmatory factor analysis confirms these results (chi(2)/gl = 1.47; AIC = 312.16; CFI = .955; RMSEA = .033). Therefore, this scale could be a good instrument of measuring attitudes toward Environmental Education that contributes to sustainability and, providing innovative information, especially in connection with the most critical attitudes toward the current socioeconomic and educational model. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.