Development of Pro-Environmental Behaviour Scale (PEBS) for the Student-Teachers of Secondary Teacher Education Institutes, West Bengal

Environmental degradation, pollution and destruction of natural ecosystems have been serious threats to the humanity and other life forms in the rapidly changing world today. In this regard, practice of pro-environmental behaviour is quite helpful in reducing the impact of these threats. The school students, if taught and trained properly by their teachers, can practice and promote pro-environmental behaviour effectively in their locality. Keeping this in mind, a need was felt to measure the pro-environmental behaviour of the student-teachers. The present study tried to focus on the development of a standardized tool to measure pro-environmental behaviour of the student-teachers which is based on the Indian socio-cultural context. The tool was developed through revision and modification of a presently available tool, originally developed based on Western context and culture. Data from 161 student-teachers of Secondary Teacher Education Institutes in West Bengal were considered for standardization of the tool. Validity and reliability of the tool were established, and the norm of application was developed. The study holds great significance because not only it shows the guideline of developing a very useful tool based on the Indian context, but also provides scope of further study on the evaluation of relationship of pro-environmental behaviour with other internal and external factors/determinants, and the prediction of pro-environmental behaviour from those internal and external factors/determinants.