Preservice teachers’ expectations, fears, and perceived contributions at the start of a compulsory environmental education course: An exploratory thematic analysis

Abstract

This study explores the expectations, fears, and perceived contributions of fourth-year preservice teachers enrolled in a compulsory Environmental Education, Sustainability and Sustainable Development course at the Department of Education Sciences in Early Childhood, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. At the outset of the Fall 2024 semester, 52 students responded to three open-ended questions probing what they anticipated from the course, what concerned them, and how they envisioned contributing to the learning process. The responses were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Regarding expectations, the most prominent themes were knowledge acquisition about environmental concepts (44.2%) and pedagogical preparedness for teaching environmental education to young children (36.5%), with a notable demand for experiential and interactive learning approaches (13.5%). In terms of fears, conceptual difficulty (19.2%) and assessment anxiety (19.2%) emerged as equally dominant concerns, followed by unfamiliarity with the subject domain (13.5%). Students’ perceived contributions centred on active participation (48.1%), sharing ideas and opinions (19.2%), and collaborative engagement (15.4%). These findings carry implications for curriculum design in teacher education, suggesting that environmental education courses should explicitly address students’ affective states, scaffold unfamiliar terminology, and embed experiential pedagogies to bridge the gap between expectations and lived learning experiences.