the last part of the questionnaire provides information on how science and chemistry teachers utilize social media and how they view social media in relation to the sustainability issue.
We asked teachers where they discovered the concept of sustainable devel- opment for the first time.
table 15.3 shows teachers’ responses to the question “Name the sources where you were first exposed to the concept of sustainable development” (respon- dents could select more than one source). table 15.3 shows that there were no meaningful differences between Jewish and Arab chemistry teachers regarding the source where they were first exposed to sustainable develop- ment. the main difference is between the pre- and in-service teachers. this is probably due to the generation gap between them. Almost 95% of pre- service teachers are under 35-years-old.
figure 15.2 compares pre-service and in-service teachers in the two sectors.
overall, figure 15.2 provides us with a sense of the popularity of differ- ent information sources. When it comes to types of information sources, the division between in-service teachers and pre-service teachers allows us to observe how things are rapidly changing in our world. these results indi- cate that academic lectures (43%) are the most common exposure source for in-service teachers for the topic of sustainable development, whereas social media (42%) is the most common exposure source for pre-service teachers.
historically, academic lectures, the press, and textbooks have been import- ant sources of knowledge and information (they were even the only ones for a while), but now this role is increasingly dominated by social media. It seems that newspapers are only used as a source of information by the older gen- eration, since only 2% of the pre-service teachers revealed that they learned about it from the press, compared with 18% of the in-service teachers.
these results indicate that 12% of pre-service teachers and 6% of in- service teachers, who actually teach in the education system, have never been exposed to the concept of sustainable development. Despite the fact that the
Table 15.3 the source of the initial exposure to the sustainable development con- cept (all groups).a
Source
Jewish Arab Statistical value
In N =
24 (%) pre N =
21 (%) In N =
48 (%) pre N =
31 (%) χ2 p
textbooks 22.2 13.6 33.3 32.3 3.68 n.s.
Academic lectures 37.0 4.5 50.0 25.8 15.10 < 0.01
Newspapers 22.2 0.0 18.8 3.2 9.63 < 0.05
tv 25.9 22.7 29.2 22.6 0.56 n.s.
Social media 18.5 27.3 27.1 51.6 8.57 < 0.05
first exposure to this issue 3.7 27.3 6.3 0.0 14.99 < 0.001
a n.s. = not significant.
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189 Chemistry Teachers’ Awareness of Sustainability Through Social Media
percentage of in-service teachers is significantly lower than the percentage of pre-service teachers, this finding is still very concerning. regarding the information sources discussed above (academic lectures, newspapers, and social media), significant differences were found between the proportion of pre- and in-service teachers who were first exposed to the sustainable devel- opment concept through these information sources (see figure 15.2). the increasing use of social media places it as a major player among the various sources of information.
Next, we asked the teachers about the most popular social media plat- forms. figure 15.3 shows teachers’ responses to the question “Mark three Figure 15.2 the source of the initial exposure to sustainability issues.
Figure 15.3 popular social media platforms.
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social media sources you frequently use”. facebook, Instagram, and Youtube are the three most popular social media platforms among the participants.
the younger generation clearly access more social media sites and from a wider variety of sources than the older generation. pearson’s chi-squared test revealed a significant difference between 77.4% of the pre-service teachers and 45.3% of the in-service teachers who frequently use Instagram, χ2(1) = 13.13, p < 0.001 as well as between 26.4% of the pre-service teachers and 4.0% of the in-service teachers who frequently use tiktok χ2(1) = 13.54, p < 0.001. regarding the cultural differences, apparently the use of social media is higher among pre- and in-service teachers from the Jewish sector than among those from the Arab sector, as a whole. pearson’s chi-squared test revealed a significant difference between the 73.5% of the Jewish sector and 41.5% of the Arab sector who frequently use Youtube, χ2(1) = 12.21, p <
0.001 as well as between 8.2% of the Jewish sector and 0% of the Arab sector who frequently use twitter, χ2(1) = 6.66, p < 0.05. When compared to the Jew- ish in-service teachers, the Arab in-service teachers used fewer social media tools. however, based on Al-kandari and colleagues,44 social media, specifi- cally Instagram, is increasingly popular in the Arab world today. Currently, Instagram is one of the most popular apps among young people, probably due to its wide range of options, ranging from sharing pictures of everyday life to informing the public of scientific developments.44 the results indicate that facebook is still a very important application across all sectors, because others with similar interests can be found (such as environmental move- ments) by following the messages they post and share with others, and by the events they organize. In addition, the Arab sector is less seen on twitter or linkedIn since most of this population instead uses facebook and Insta- gram (see figure 15.3). tiktok is a relatively new application that has only emerged in the last two years, so its scope of use is limited, compared with other platforms, and its users are largely young people (about 18% of Jewish pre-service teachers and about 32% of Arab pre-service teachers).
finally, we asked the participants about the effectiveness of social media as a platform for conveying sustainability messages. figure 15.4 shows teach- ers’ responses to the question “Mark the sources of social media that you believe are accessible and convenient for conveying sustainability messages”. Significant differences were found across sectors regarding perceptions of the effective- ness of the Youtube and twitter apps in promoting sustainable development.
pearson’s chi-squared test revealed a significant difference between 61.2% of the Jewish sector and 38.0% of the Arab sector who perceived Youtube as an effective platform for promoting sustainability issues, χ2(1) = 6.50, p < 0.05 as well as between 18.4% of the Jewish sector and 5.1% of the Arab sector who perceived twitter as an effective platform for promoting sustainability issues, χ2(1) = 5.82, p < 0.05.
According to figure 15.4, the majority of participants (65%) perceive Ins- tagram as a very useful tool for communicating sustainability issues. the younger generation especially supports using Instagram for such purposes.
pearson’s chi-squared test revealed a significant difference between 81.1% of
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191 Chemistry Teachers’ Awareness of Sustainability Through Social Media
the pre-service teachers and 55.3% of the in-service teachers who perceive Instagram as an effective platform for promoting sustainability issues, χ2(1) = 10.53, p = 0.001. Although pre-service teachers can use different social media platforms to promote sustainability, in-service teachers cling to more famil- iar apps such as facebook and Youtube. the participants evidently perceive video clips as a very effective way to convey messages, probably due to their visualization capability regarding environmental issues such as climate- related natural disasters. We assume that this might explain why teachers used Youtube and tiktok at such high rates. this is especially surprising since tiktok is not their usual application of choice (see figure 15.3). pear- son’s chi-squared test revealed a significant difference between 49.1% of the pre-service teachers and 22.7% of the in-service teachers who perceive tik- tok as an effective platform for promoting sustainability issues, χ2(1) = 9.70, p < 0.05 as well as between 62.3% of the pre-service teachers and 36.0% of the in-service teachers who perceive Youtube as an effective platform for pro- moting sustainability issues, χ2(1) = 8.60, p < 0.05.
perhaps due to their unfamiliarity with these platforms, some in-service teachers perceive them as less effective. the older participants may not realize that they can also be used for beneficial purposes like promoting sustainabil- ity issues because they have heard negative reviews about them. Generally, the results indicate that teachers support teaching about sustainability using social media, such as Youtube, Instagram, and tiktok. Differences between pre-service and in-service teachers regarding the effectiveness of different social media sources might indicate generational differences. following the close-ended items regarding the use of social media, the participants were requested to describe how they express their support for sustainable devel- opment through social media.
Figure 15.4 the effectiveness of social media as a platform for conveying sustain- ability messages.
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the following examples represent some of the responses to this question:
#2016—Jewish pre-service teacher
I support a page on Instagram that encourages green thinking. I send videos related to sustainability.
#1001—Jewish in-service teacher
I use social media passively—I don’t upload or share posts.
#3044—Arabic in-service teacher
Through my Facebook page, I promote clean events and conservation of the environment.
#4008—Arabic in-service teacher
I share short video clips that explain sustainability issues.