As the main focus of ECER 2016 is Leading Education and the network on Environmental and Sustainability Education Research have called researchers to present their results and views on how assessment and measurement could contribute to effective leadership in the field of environmental and sustainability education (ESE), the aim of the proposed symposium is to contribute to the discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of different possible evaluation approaches in the field of ESE. The four presentations of the symposium give an international overview of the evaluation efforts of ESE in three different countries: Austria, Hungary and Sweden. All of the presented evaluation studies have the local Eco-school program in their focus. The examined Eco-school programs are based on a whole-school approach to education for sustainability promoted by the European Union in the European Council conclusions of 19 November 2010 on education for sustainable development. (EU 2010). This approach has been applied for several decades with Eco-school programs throughout Europe supported by the ENSI international network. (Posch 1999; Henderson and Tilbury 2004.).

                The presentations from different countries will represent four different evaluation approaches: participatory evaluation, program-monitoring evaluation, group level performance evaluation and evaluation on individual pupil level.

The Austrian presentation will introduce the Eco-schools network in Austria. Based upon these foundations, the concept and results of a participatory evaluation study are described and reflected. This study examined those 23 schools that have been part of the ECOLOG programme for the last 10 years by guideline-based interviews with heads of schools and ECOLOG coordinators. In a participatory workshop with representatives of the schools interviewed preliminary results were discussed, reflected and developed further (Rauch 2016).

 In the Hungarian presentation the self-evaluation system of the Hungarian Eco-school network (Réti at al 2015) and the external monitoring system will be described. Later the latest results of the monitoring system will be discussed based on the result of an on-line questionnaire sent out for 869 schools with an Eco-school title in Hungary and on-situ visits, document analysis and interviews in 10 schools having the title for at least for six years.

The first Swedish presentation is about the development of an instrument which was used to compare the outcomes of eco-preschools (n=6) and non-eco preschools (n=6) in terms of children’s understanding and practices of environmental and sustainability issues. The concept of sustainability was operationalized in three themes (recycling, transport use and consumption). Applying a cross-sectional design, 53 children aged five and six were interviewed. The interviews were audio recorded. Besides describing the development of the instrument, preliminary results from the interviews will be presented at the symposium.

The second Swedish presentation is based on evaluation studies (Olsson et al. 2015; Olsson & Gericke, 2016), in which a total number of 1770 students in grades 6 and 9 participated. About half of the sample consists of students in Eco-schools. The main aim of the studies was to investigate the outcome of ESD on a student level. A questionnaire was developed to capture students’ sustainability consciousness. Since there is a lack of a Swedish national evaluation strategy for Eco-schools this presentation provides important knowledge about ESD-implementation in Sweden and will give a solid basis for a more general discussion. 

By presenting these different evaluation approaches the symposium would like to contribute to and encourage the discussion about the following basic questions regarding evaluation of environmental and sustainability education: “What should be the subjects and objects of assessment and evaluation? How can we assess or evaluate success? How can we develop an evaluation approach on country/national level which can be used as a model for all educational programs?

EU (2010): Council conclusions of 19 November 2010 on education for sustainable development In: Official Journal of the European Union 4. 12. 2010 C 327/11- C 327/14 Henderson, K., & Tilbury, D. (2004). Whole-school approaches to sustainability: An international review of sustainable school programs. Report Prepared by the Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustainability (ARIES) for The Department of the Environment and Heritage, Australian Government. ISBN, 1(86408), 979. Olsson, D., Gericke, N., & Chang-Rundgren, S-N. (2015). The effect of implementation of education for sustainable development in Swedish compulsory schools - assessing pupils’ sustainability consciousness. Environmental Education Research. doi: 10.1080/13504622.2015.1005057 Olsson, D. & N. Gericke. (2016). The adolescent dip in students’ sustainability consciousenss: Implications for education for sustainable development. Journal of environmental education. 47(1), 35-51. Rauch, F. (2016). Networking for Education for Sustainable Development: The Austrian ECOLOG-Schools Programme. Educational Action Research. (In Print) (DOI: 10.1080/09650792.2015.1132000) Posch, P. (1999). The Ecologisation of Schools and its Implications for Educational Policy. Cambridge Journal of Education, 29(3), 341–348. Réti, M., Horváth, D., Czippán K., & Varga, A. (2015): The challenge of mainstreaming of ESD in Hungary In: Jucker, R & Mathar, R.,(eds): Schooling for Sustainable Development in Europe, Springer International Publishing, Switzerland, 201-219.