Climate change is not a scientific problem, but rather a social and economic one. Teaching students about how to face such a complex and politicised topic, how to be critical thinkers or life-long learners is not neutral nor it is context neutral (Perkins et al., 2018). Education for sustainability (EfS) is a natural response to these complex matters. EfS could be a contribution towards a “cultural transformation into a sustainable society and world” (Laininen, 2019:180). This type of education promotes active participation of all actors within school communities, empowering students as change agents, incorporating skills and sustainable practices in school routine and fostering the role of the school as a force of cultural transformation towards sustainability (Hargis et al., 2021). Teachers and institutions around the world are attempting to redirect their teaching and learning strategies in order to provide students with tools to face the climate emergency. 

To this end, school practices have to show different aspects of sustainability and encourage students to lead sustainable lifestyles as part of their school routine (Laininen, 2019). Merely promoting sustainable lifestyles is not an ambitious enough target for this type of education (Cook, 2019). The myriad of teaching and learning methods of EfS that have arisen has brought about new issues such as: i) what is quality EfS? ii) How do we evaluate and assess EfS?

There is no consensus about how EfS can be evaluated or assessed. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge there are no studies that have collected and analysed EfS evaluation methods at the secondary school level. This study aims at addressing this gap, taking into account existing efforts to map approaches for measuring sustainability competencies in secondary schools (Waltner et al., 2019). 

There is robust available literature of case studies focused on EfS in formal education at the primary school level. However, how EfS is conducted in secondary schools seems to be less frequently explored in the literature (Taylor et al., 2019). It is particularly important to focus on EfS with secondary school students, because as they approach adulthood, they can vote, take active part in civic participation and make choices as consumers (Ferkany & Whyte, 2013).

In view of the above, we have decided to conduct a systematic review of the literature and evaluate which assessment methods are being used in secondary schools in educational projects that focus on EfS. This study is an effort to explore the following research questions: 

• What evaluation or assessment mechanisms are available in the literature? 

• What are the characteristics and focus of the evaluation or assessment mechanisms available? In which contexts are they used? and how?

• What are the limitations and opportunities of such evaluation and assessment mechanisms?  

These questions are addressed through a systematic literature review in which we first identify diverse ways of evaluating EfS at the secondary school level presented in the literature. We then discuss the objectives, theoretical justifications, limitations and opportunities of such assessments. Finally, we propose a survey that will be validated and used as an evaluation tool for EfS projects in secondary schools in northern Italy. 

This systematic literature review aims at synthesising assessment and evaluation methods for EfS at the secondary school level and to answer the aforementioned research questions. To this end, the following steps were taken: 1) Establishing a search strategy 2) Study selection 3) Study analysis The search strategy encompasses both the databases in which searches were conducted and the search criteria. Three online databases were selected: ERIC, Scopus and Web of Science. These databases were chosen because they are the most established and recognised within the social sciences. As for the search criteria, we used the following keywords: “education”, “sustainability” and “evaluation tool”. Furthermore, we only took into consideration peer-reviewed articles, published in English in the time period 2000-2022 and in journals that focus on the fields of Social Sciences or Arts and the Humanities. These decisions were made in order to optimise search results that match the scope of this research. In a first instance, 471 articles were extracted from the databases. Upon removal of duplicates, 342 articles were retained for study selection. The second step, study selection, entails three steps: i) initial selection based on screening of titles of all retrieved articles; ii) abstract and title analysis of initially selected articles; iii) full-text review of accepted articles in previous step for final inclusion in sample. After conducting the title and abstract analysis, 121 articles were retained for full-text review. These articles meet one or more of the following criteria: 1) Studies that focus on how to evaluate education for sustainability from a pedagogical perspective. 2) Studies that highlight assessment methods of sustainability-oriented education projects at the institutional level. 3) Studies which elaborate on theoretical frameworks used to evaluate sustainability projects in educational contexts. Finally, in the analytical stage, articles are clustered based on their evaluation methodology, object and aim. Thematic and content analyses are then applied to each cluster separately.

This work aims not only at providing a comprehensive analysis of available evaluation methods for EfS at the secondary school level, but also at creating a validated survey that can be used to assess EfS. At this point it is worth mentioning that one of the limitations of this study, which lies on terminology. There is ongoing debate about how to define Environmental Education (EE), Environmental for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Climate Change Education (CCE). These are constantly being redefined depending on context. We decided to include “education” and “sustainability” in the search keywords in order to cast a broad nest. Therefore, it is possible that relevant studies that focus on EE, ESD and CCE are not included in this systematic literature review. As for the survey we have produced, it is based on elements adapted from the New Ecological Paradigm (Dunlap, 2008), the 2-MEV scale (Johnson, B. & Manoli, C., 2010) and the Sustainability Consciousness Questionnaire (Gericke et al., 2019). It consists of 53 items divided in three sections: sociodemographic information, ecological footprint and sustainability competences. These items concern knowledge, values, attitudes, behaviours and (implicitly) skills that are relevant and worth discussing within the key competencies in sustainability frameworks (Bianchi, 2020; Brundiers et al., 2020; Glasser & Hirsh, 2016; UNESCO, 2019) and in relation to ways to operationalize them (Sterling et al., 2017) . The survey will be validated and used to assess educational projects in approximately 25 classrooms distributed across three regions in the north of Italy. We have conducted a pre-test of the survey with 50 students and we are currently in the data analysis process. We will then conduct the survey validation with 150 students. Finally, the survey will be used with 250 students as a tool to evaluate EfS curricular programmes.

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