Preschool Environmental Education in Vietnam: The Relationship between Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices

Abstract

noneEnvironmental education (EE) is a long-term process and should be initiated during the first years of life. In particular, EE for preschool children is an important beginning to contribute to the comprehensive development of their physical, intellectual, language, aesthetic, spiritual, and social aspects. It also helps in forming and developing environmental literacy for children during their school years and throughout their lives.In the context of encountering many urgent environmental problems, EE has been identified as a strategic development plan of the Vietnamese government and the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET). Formal EE is integrated at all levels of the national education system in Vietnam and EE for preschool children has been identified as essential and has received attention from stakeholders in both practical implementation and research. However, there has been limited investigation of teachers’ beliefs about preschool EE and how they implement it in practice. This study fills these gaps by identifying the status and modelling the correlation between the beliefs and the practice of preschool teachers in Vietnam in the application of EE in their work. The study hypothesized that teachers’ beliefs about EE (BEE) in preschool have a positive effect on their EE practices (EEP).A quantitative approach will be used, which involves a proposed second-order construct model and a questionnaire sent to preschool teachers who are randomly selected from three cities (Hanoi, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh) in Vietnam through an online survey. SmartPLS-4 and Welch’s ANOVA software will be utilized for data analysis. Harman’s single-factor test and correlation matrix test procedures were checked to ensure that the problem of common method bias was eliminated in this study.The findings showed that preschool teachers have a positive belief about the necessity and benefits of EE for children. They also believed that EE is affected by many different factors and exists with many barriers. Preschool teachers have integrated EE into all subjects and themes in the Vietnamese preschool education curriculum. The content of EE was mainly concerned with the relationship between humans and the surrounding environment. Teachers used games and natural materials for EE more frequently than other strategies and materials. The difference in EE practices by work experience and the number of environmentally-related courses attended was identified. Finally, the hypothesis of this study was supported by the findings that teachers’ beliefs about EE have a positive influence on their EE practices. In addition, this study also provides an illustration for using the two-stage approach to validate and evaluate the reflective-formative type of second-order construct model in PLS-SEM.Based on the findings, this study provided implications and identified some suggestions for preschool curriculum development, initial preschool teacher training, and professional development for in-service preschool teachers. The limitations and recommendations for future research were also discussed.