Predicting Pre-service teachers’ intention to implement education for sustainable development: A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

Woonsun Kang

doi:10.18844/cjes.v16i5.6344

Abstract

Implementation of Education for Sustainable Development is a complex social phenomenon. This research aims to suggest ways to strengthen the implementation of ESD, identifying the factors affecting pre-service teachers’ intention of implementing ESD. To this end, the author focused on revealing the different combinations of conditions predicting Korean pre-service teachers’ intention to implementing education for sustainable development (ESD). The research method is the fuzzy sets qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) using the set-theoretic relations, starting from the premise that social phenomena have causal complexity characteristics. An analysis of 245 valid questionnaires from Korean pre-service teachers resulted in three main findings. The author suggested that teacher education institutions need to include content related to ESD in the teacher education curriculum so that pre-service teachers can cultivate positive attitudes toward ESD and improve their self-efficacy in student engagement and instruction in the context of ESD.  Keywords Education for sustainable development; ESD; Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis(fsQCA), Necessary Condition; Self-responsibility; self-efficacy; Theory of planned behavior 

Highlights

Teachers play a critical role in implementing education for sustainable development (ESD)
Three anchors must be included the threshold for full membership, the cross-over point, and the threshold for full non-membership (Ragin, 2008 ; Ajzen, 1991)
The cross-over point was set at median

Summary

Introduction

Teachers play a critical role in implementing education for sustainable development (ESD). Becoming a teacher is a continuing process from pre-service experience to the end of a professional career. From this perspective, implementing ESD can be formed from the pre-teacher period. As a part of exploring strategies for implementing ESD, it is very important to identify the factors affecting pre-service teachers’ intention of implementing ESD. In the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), frequently used to elucidate human behaviors, the intention is emphasized as a direct antecedent of the behavior. The investigation of pre-service teachers’ intention to implement ESD would be the first step to predict whether teachers would implement ESD

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Discussion

Conclusion