Students' perceptions of education for sustainable development

Abstract

Purpose – This study investigated whether a course which focused on raising students' awareness of sustainability, from a balanced perspective, that is, one which gives equal consideration to the social and economic aspects as well as the environmental would produce graduates with the knowledge and commitment required to drive the sustainability agenda forward. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – An analysis of students' final entries in their reflective journal was used to explore whether their views on sustainability reflected a balanced view. Findings – The findings of this research confirmed previous studies showed that initially students do have an enviro-centric bias. It also showed that despite experiencing a pedagogical approach which challenged views by encouraging discussion, debate, and reflection and which provided what was considered to be a balanced view of sustainability, many of the students still leaned towards an environmentally focused perspective of sustainability. Research limitations/implications – The conclusions are based on one data set but are supported by other data described in the paper. Practical implications – The finding led the authors to conclude that a concerted holistic effort within and across courses is needed within tertiary institutions if students' views about sustainability are to be challenged. Originality/value – The outcomes demonstrate that students' reflective journals can be used to gather information about the change in students' perceptions about sustainability.

Learning about Sustainability—What Influences Students’ Self-Perceived Sustainability Actions after Undergraduate Education?

“…Hicks [14] indicated that learning about global issues such as sustainability and acting upon it can never be solely a cognitive matter, but must also involve an affective understanding. Nonetheless, 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] Several studies have focused on students' perceptions of sustainability [19][20][21], the impact of the amount and type of coursework on students' conceptualizations of sustainability [22], and the relationships of demographic factors on students' environmental awareness, knowledge and behavior [23,24]. However, limited studies exist on the results of sustainability implementation in education, as was highlighted by Tilbury [25], and on students' learning progress about sustainability during their university studies, according to McKeown [26].…”

Students’ Assessment of Campus Sustainability at the University of Dammam, Saudi Arabia

“…This is very vital because an educated public is required to carry out informed sustainability decisions that would affect the entire society. There is empirical evidence that even a single course, that encourages more active learning and involves an inquiry based approach, has been effective in positively changing students' perceptions of sustainability [21]. Also, courses must be not only instruments of delivering ESD, but instructors must be centrally involved in developing the concepts, content, pedagogy, evaluation, and research that will support the creation of ESD [7].…”

“…Examples of such studies were conducted in several universities in USA [4,17,19], Europe-such as in Germany [15] and UK [13,20]-and in Australia [21]. In all these studies, students are quite aware about and are willing to support and participate in sustainable initiatives at their colleages/universities.…”

Sustainability Assessment of Higher Education Institutions in Saudi Arabia

“…Related examples of such assessment/framework were carried out in the United States [19], Canada [20], and the United Kingdom [21]. Other studies were on HEIs' students' perception and assessment of campus sustainable development in the United States [4,22,23], Germany [24], the United Kingdom [25], Australia [26], and many more. A recent study carried out in Saudi Arabia investigated students' assessment of campus sustainability at the University of Dammam via the use of an SAQ [27].…”