Pre-Service Geography Teachers’ Professional Competencies in Education for Sustainable Development

Rieke Ammoneit,Carina Peter,Andreas Turek

doi:10.3390/educsci12010042

Rieke Ammoneit, Carina Peter + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12010042

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Journal: Education sciences	Publication Date: Jan 11, 2022
Citations: 2	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Philipps University of Marburg

Abstract

The professional competencies pre-service geography teachers acquire in university influence their contribution to education for sustainable development (ESD) in their future school careers. We assessed pre-service geography teachers’ (n = 100) competencies and attitudes towards the official, German ESD orientation framework to determine the specific need for higher education action. The results are a high competence assessment and even higher importance assigned to the ESD-related professional competencies. In the context of ESD, pre-service teachers are most confident in their content knowledge and social and personal competencies and least confident in their pedagogical knowledge. The cross-sectional analysis shows the perceived competence level rising with the semester number and a strong positive influence of the school practice module.

Highlights

IntroductionThe need for education for sustainable development (ESD) is more apparent than ever [1]
Amid a global crisis, the need for education for sustainable development (ESD) is more apparent than ever [1]
This study aims to assess the status quo of pre-service geography teachers’ ESD comcompetencies to help identify the specific need for action in promoting ESD competencies petencies to help identify the specific need for action in promoting ESD competencies in in pre-service teachers’ higher geography education

Summary

Introduction

The need for education for sustainable development (ESD) is more apparent than ever [1]. To reach the goals defined by the UNESCO models, defining competencies needed for sustainable development were developed [2,3,4,5,6]. The ESD competence models stress the importance of interdisciplinary thinking and holistic competencies. It is essential to integrate ESD into teachers’ education to equip teachers with the necessary skills to integrate ESD into their work and become change agents [7,8,9,10]. As holistic ESD aims require disciplinary expertise to become meaningful [11] and most educational systems are organized by subjects, integrating ESD into subject didactics is vital for quick integration in schools

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