Sustainability knowledge using “AKASA” model among architecture students from Klang Valley private universities, Malaysia.

Abstract

Abstract. The study intend to investigate sustainability knowledge using "AKASA" model. This model comprises all the literacy level which is the awareness, knowledge, attitude, skills and action. 234 students from 5 selected private universities were surveyed using questionnaires. Students were specifically selected from year 2 and year 3 from private universities in Klang valley, Malaysia. The study intends to investigate the environmental literacy level specifically the knowledge variable. The parametric study was conducted with descriptive analysis and the results shows that the environmental knowledge is at high level compared to other environmental literacy variables among year 2, year 3 and combine year 2 and year 3.

A Tool to Assess Architectural Education from the Sustainable Development Perspective and the Students’ Viewpoint

“…With this aim, generalist Architectural Education (AE) has been assessed from the sustainability perspective in Spain and worldwide in relation to three main aspects: curriculaunderstood as a plan for formal learning- , the learning experience provided by schools [26][27][28][31][32][33][34]40,41,[43][44][45][46][47]49,50,[52][53][54][55], and the learning outcomes acquired by students [26,28,43,53,54,[56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63].…”

“…Learning outcomes have been primarily assessed with questionnaires for students [26,28,43,53,54,[56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63].…”

“…In the case of the learning outcomes acquired by students: the different levels of domain (according to different authors, these can be classified as awareness, knowledge, skills, behaviors or attitudes [56][57][58]72,73]; know, live together, do and be [74]; or cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioral [66,75]), the specific outcomes related to AESD and the broad practice of the generalist architect [5], and the cross-cutting competencies for sustainability [4,75]; • Furthermore, the three dimensions of sustainability-environmental, social, and economic-should be considered [6,67,75].…”

“…In the case of learning outcomes for SD, existing evaluations have only covered the different levels of domain in one case [56][57][58] while overlooking some of them in the rest [26,28,43,53,54,[59][60][61][62][63]. These studies have occasionally considered social and/or economic dimensions of sustainability [28,43,53,61] and have in all cases ignored the cross-cutting competencies for sustainability and architectural competencies unrelated to design or building design.…”

“…In this context, it is particularly critical to advance in the assessment of the learning experience and outcomes since this is where the main gap resides, and a better under-standing of these two aspects would offer a complementary but fundamental perspective to improve AESD [4,6,66,67,75,76]. From a methodological point of view, this needed investigation should consider the proven effectivity that questionnaires can have in this kind of assessment and the key role that students can play as final recipients of the learning process [28,43,49,53,54,[56][57][58]60]. Moreover, the process and result of the development of such a students' questionnaire, would also provide a deeper understanding of the factors affecting AESD and would furnish education managers and pedagogical experts with a highly systematized and transferable tool, easily and economically applicable at different schools that allows for comparative studies between academic programs.…”