Abstract
Changing societies’ minds about sustainability requires knowledge about the situation, awareness of what needs to be done and actions to change today’s unsustainable behaviors. Universities are challenged to develop students’ ability to appreciate the complexities of sustainability and translate sustainability knowledge of education into systemic, anticipatory and critical thinking and actions. To meet this challenge, universities provide specific study programs and courses and integrate sustainability in education and activities. There is limited research on the results of such efforts from a student perspective. The study focused on an identical cohort of 108 undergraduate students who answered a survey about their self-perceived knowledge, awareness and actions before and after their studies in a Swedish university. All 108 students had sustainability integrated into their study programs; forty-eight also attended specific sustainability courses. The test model explains variations in students’ self-perceived sustainability actions at the end of their studies. There were differences already in students’ initial self-perceived knowledge between the groups. The students’ female gender, self-perceived initial actions, studying sustainability courses as well as the increase in self-perceived sustainability knowledge contribute significantly to the later sustainability actions. The results show student development, which can encourage those working with education for sustainable development in universities.
Highlights
Companies are increasingly integrating sustainability into their business agendas so they need professionals who have been educated in the topic [1]
Sustainability was included in the ten study program plans; four of them contained specific courses focusing on sustainability
Seven and one-half European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ETCS) credits in sustainable development (SD) courses correspond to five weeks of full-time study, less than 7.5 ECTS indicates that sustainability is integrated as part of a course
Summary
Companies are increasingly integrating sustainability into their business agendas so they need professionals who have been educated in the topic [1] This requires that university students have the opportunity during their education to develop the ability to understand the need for sustainability and act on it by integrating social, environmental and economic considerations in their decision making [2,3]. Universities are being challenged to provide students opportunities to develop an understanding of the complexities of sustainable development (SD) [4] and to translate the knowledge from education for sustainable development (ESD) into systemic and anticipatory critical thinking and actions [5] To address this challenge, universities provide courses focusing on sustainability on educational programs and integrate sustainability issues into regular disciplinary course content [6,7,8] to support the need for sustainability competences [9]. Increasing knowledge may not automatically result in changes in awareness and actions [15], so educational institutions aim at development of deeper circular learning patterns, where the knowledge is reflected upon and questioned in learning loops before application [12,16,17,18]
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