TY - JOUR

T1 - Do German student biology teachers intend to eat sustainably? Extending the theory of planned behavior with nature relatedness and environmental concern

AU - Weber, Alina

AU - Büssing, Alexander Georg

AU - Jarzyna, Raphael

AU - Fiebelkorn, Florian

N1 - Funding Information: This research received no external funding. We thank all participating student teachers and lecturers who enabled the conducting of our study. Parts of this article (in a manuscript version) are part of the publication-based dissertation of the corresponding author.

PY - 2020/6/16

Y1 - 2020/6/16

N2 - Non-sustainable food choices are responsible for many global challenges, such as biodiversity loss and climate change. To achieve a transformation toward sustainable nutrition, it is crucial to implement education for sustainable development (ESD), with the key issue "nutrition", in schools and teacher training. Biology teachers are crucial for promoting ESD competences. Thus, the main aim of the study is to investigate the social and environmental psychological factors that may affect the intention of student biology teachers to eat sustainably as an integral part of their action competence needed for teaching this topic effectively. We conducted a paper-pencil questionnaire (N = 270, Mage = 22.9; SD = 2.8) based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and expanded the model by integrating environmental concern and nature relatedness. A path model is reported to show the relationships between the variables. The results show that the extended TPB model is suitable for predicting the intention to eat sustainably. Nature relatedness and altruistic concern positively predict attitudes and the intention to eat sustainably. This study suggests further research on the importance of (student) teachers' nutritional behavior, as a possible determinant of the intention to teach this topic in their future school career.

AB - Non-sustainable food choices are responsible for many global challenges, such as biodiversity loss and climate change. To achieve a transformation toward sustainable nutrition, it is crucial to implement education for sustainable development (ESD), with the key issue "nutrition", in schools and teacher training. Biology teachers are crucial for promoting ESD competences. Thus, the main aim of the study is to investigate the social and environmental psychological factors that may affect the intention of student biology teachers to eat sustainably as an integral part of their action competence needed for teaching this topic effectively. We conducted a paper-pencil questionnaire (N = 270, Mage = 22.9; SD = 2.8) based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and expanded the model by integrating environmental concern and nature relatedness. A path model is reported to show the relationships between the variables. The results show that the extended TPB model is suitable for predicting the intention to eat sustainably. Nature relatedness and altruistic concern positively predict attitudes and the intention to eat sustainably. This study suggests further research on the importance of (student) teachers' nutritional behavior, as a possible determinant of the intention to teach this topic in their future school career.

KW - Attitudes

KW - Education for sustainable development

KW - Environmental concern

KW - Nature connectedness

KW - Perceived behavioral control

KW - Pre-service biology teachers

KW - Subjective norm

KW - Sustainable nutrition

KW - Teacher training

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087700236&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/SU12124909

DO - 10.3390/SU12124909

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85087700236

VL - 12

JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)

JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)

SN - 2071-1050

IS - 12

M1 - 4909

ER -