Formation of Environmental Competences of Future Primary School Teachers in Inclusive Education

Abstract

The study aimed to identify the peculiarities of developing environmental competence among students of pedagogical specialities in an inclusive educational environment in the Kyrgyz Republic. The research was conducted at Kyrgyz State University named after I. Arabaev and involved 120 second- to fourth-year students majoring in Primary Education. A pedagogical experiment with pre- and post-intervention diagnostics was combined with quantitative and qualitative analysis. Before the formative stage, students showed mainly average or below-average levels of environmental competence: mean scores were 2.8 out of 5 for the cognitive component, 2.5 for the operational component, and 3.4 for the value-motivational component. The formative programme integrated environmental content with inclusive teaching methods, adapted materials, eco-projects, and digital tools for students with special educational needs. After the intervention, the experimental group improved to 3.6 for the cognitive component, 3.7 for the operational component, and 4.2 for the value-motivational component, whereas the control group showed only minor changes. Inclusive experience was associated with growth in environmental skills (r=0.46) and value attitudes (r=0.39), while the correlation with knowledge was weaker (r=0.21). The main difficulties were uncertainty in adapting environmental materials (45%), limited experience in creating inclusive didactic tools (31.7%), and insufficient awareness of digital resources (24.2%). The findings show that integrating environmental education with inclusive pedagogy strengthens primary school teachers’ knowledge, practical skills, and value orientations. The results can improve teacher-training curricula by integrating environmental content with inclusive pedagogical preparation.