Teachers’ profile in sustainability: Association with personal and social responsibility in physical education classes

Abstract

This study aims to identify in a sample of future teachers the profiles of their perceptions, attitudes, and values towards sustainable development and to determine whether a specific profile is related to personal and social responsibility and positive behaviors in Physical Education classes. The sample comprised 372 students (Mage = 22.02±3.16 years; 66.67% girls) from the subject of Physical Education of the Degree of Teacher of Primary Education (Universities of Granada and Zaragoza). An initial cluster analysis revealed the existence of two different groups among future teachers: Cluster 1, "negative perception," represented by 36.3%, and Cluster 2, "positive perceptions" with 63.7% of the sample. Thus, almost 40% of the sample does not perceive the current environmental crisis. The relationship between the groups and the rest of the target variables was analyzed through one-factor ANOVA, finding that Cluster 2 students had higher values in all the dimensions of personal and social responsibility and positive behaviors than those of Cluster 1. Lastly, a discriminant analysis revealed that belonging to a certain university determined belonging to one of the two Clusters, with the values obtained by the sample from the University of Granada being higher than those from the University of Zaragoza.