Abstract
PurposeThis study aims to understand better the student awareness and knowledge on how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are used in higher education institutions (HEIs) to motivate students’ learning on sustainability. It is essential to consider students’ understanding of sustainability at the end of their studies to assess whether they feel prepared to apply sustainability in their daily work life.Design/methodology/approachThe study has a quantitative case study design, and the specific method used is an online survey with masters’ students using the university student platform EvaSys. The study assesses approaching how students perceive the overall education integrating sustainability into programs and curricula.FindingsThe results showed that work-integrated learning (WIL) projects learning and real-life experiences as part of their studies enhanced the students’ understanding of sustainability. Moreover, the study showed that integrating an understanding of the SDGs in teaching offers universities a way to frame students’ key competencies in ways that allow them to develop their interpersonal competencies as ambassadors for sustainability in their future work life.Practical implicationsThis study supports the argument that WIL and real-life university experiences enhance students’ key competencies critical for sustainability.Originality/valueThe pedagogical approach advanced in this paper addresses how WIL and real-life experiences might develop students’ key competencies on sustainability. This approach indicates that working with SDGs in teaching encourages students to promote their interpersonal competencies for sustainability.
Highlights
Sustainability is an increasingly important topic worldwide, with awareness of this topic growing since the 2016 Agenda 2030 publication by the United Nations (Boyon, 2019)
Q2.3: This question concerned Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) frequencies in classes. 33.3% stated it to be part of more than four classes during their education. Another 33.3% stated that they experienced SDGs in three-quarters of their classes, 23.3% stated they identified SDGs in one-third of their classes and 10% of the participants answered that the SDGs were not an identifiable part of their classes, and these results indicate and support a broad distribution of the SDGs in various classes and could be described as a fair result
Just as Palsdottir and Johannsdottir (2021) highlighted the importance of the five competencies in their investigation into University of Iceland curriculum, the five competencies are deemed to support a transition toward sustainability
Summary
Sustainability is an increasingly important topic worldwide, with awareness of this topic growing since the 2016 Agenda 2030 publication by the United Nations (Boyon, 2019). In addition to students’ education and preparation, sustainability in higher education institutions (HEIs) focuses on the sustainable operation of university facilities and communities. This effort toward the sustainable management of university facilities serves a dual function, as universities may act as living labs or institutional role models for students (Lozano et al, 2011). University programs and sustainability researchers are increasingly investigating how best to prepare students to integrate sustainability into future professional efforts (Junghanns and Beery, 2020) and considering how program outcomes in HEIs align with the actual learning processes (Redman et al, 2021)
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