Education for sustainable development (ESD) is becoming increasingly important as a response to the urgent societal and environmental problems the world is facing. ESD is considered as a holistic concept as complex issues can only be effectively addressed by integrating multiple perspectives and relationships (Mogren et al., 2018; UNESCO, 2014). Recognizing this, UNESCO (2020) recommends a whole school approach (WSA), which is a way for schools to transform their practice towards ESD (Shallcross & Robinson, 2008).

Students cannot just learn about sustainable development, they should get to experience and take part in concrete and authentic actions for sustainability (Sinakou et al., 2019). By improving students' own environments, the WSA aims to enhance students' learning about societal needs (Mogren et al., 2018). Because of this there should be an action-oriented approach to ESD, where students get experiences with performing concrete actions to contribute to solutions to concrete and authentic, local sustainability issues through the ESD teaching at their schools (Sinakou et al., 2019).

Schools are responsible for empowering students to address the world's extensive and complex societal challenges. Consequently, ESD provide students opportunities to develop their action competence for sustainability (Sass et al., 2020). There are many interpretations of what action competence is (Sass et al., 2020). In their definition, Sass et al. (2020) argue that action competence consists of three main elements: 1) Knowledge of the problem and its action possibilities, 2) Confidence in one’s own influence, and 3) Willingness to act. For students to develop action competence around sustainable issues, they should be allowed to take responsibility for their own learning and tackle sustainable development problems (Sinakou et al., 2019). 

In the face of difficulties, people have little motivation to act if they do not believe they can perform the task, or if they believe the task will not yield the desired result (Sass et al., 2020). Thus, the experience of participating and having an impact at school and in society can help students develop action competence. This was supported by Torsdottir et al. (In manuscript) who found that student participation and influence can be important for developing action competence. However, their research looked at student participation as a way of influencing within the school setting, and not on how students school experiences in participating in society can help students develop action competence.    

Although the literature suggests that an action-oriented approach can help students develop action competence, few studies have focused on this aspect of the teaching when measuring action competence as a outcome of ESD (e.g. Olsson et al., 2022). Because of the importance of action-oriented approaches to ESD, the current study focuses on an action-oriented approach with students getting experiences in influencing society. For small children this should be about actions towards their schools or schoolyards, but as they get older they can take a more active role in society (Chawla & Cushing, 2007). Chawla and Cushing (2007) argue that teaching is not only about how to teach young people to act favorably to the environment, but also how to teach them to do it in an effective and strategic way. Strategic actions can be pressuring businesses or municipality departments to become more environmentally friendly, as that has a much larger effect that what you can contribute through private actions. Due to this, the current study will focus on one part of action-orientation, namely school experiences in influencing society.

The research question is:  

What is the relationship between students’ school experiences in participating in society and their self-perceived action competence for sustainability?

This study is based on a questionnaire conducted on 902 upper secondary school students in three upper secondary schools in Norway. All schools in the study were part of a larger project called ‘ESD in Practice’, a collaboration between the teacher education at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, a county municipality and four upper secondary schools working together to develop a focus on ESD throughout the whole school. In the current study, we collected questionnaire data to investigate the effects on students’ school experiences in influencing society and their self-perceived action competence. Two scales have been used in the study. The School Experiences in Influencing Society (SEISS) scale is a single-factor model developed by the authors to tap into if students got to experience how to affect for example politicians or businesses through the school work. The self-perceived action competence for sustainability (SPACS) scale was developed by (Olsson et al., 2020) and was created to catch the three factors in the definition of action competence made by Sass et al. (2020). The participants answered to the items in both scales on a five-point Likert scale that ranged from completely disagree to completely agree. We first imported the dataset to IBM SPSS Statistics version 27, where we performed the data preparation and analyzed the data using descriptive statistics. Then the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for our two theoretical models was performed in Mplus 8. Lastly, we performed a structural equation modelling (SEM) to investigate the relationship between the latent factor measuring school experiences in influencing society and the three latent factors in the self-perceived action competence for sustainability model. The CFAs and SEM-analysis were performed using a robust maximum likelihood (MLR) estimator, and missing data were handled using full information maximum likelihood (FIML) methodology (Graham, 2009). To evaluate the CFA models, we looked at the chi-square values and four goodness-of-fit indices with the cut-off values recommended by Hu and Bentler (1999), that is (RMSEA) < 0.06, CFI and TLA > 0.95 and SRMR < 0.08.

The CFA had good model fit for both the SEISS model and the SPACS. All standardized loadings in the latent factors were higher than 0,6. The SEM analyses used to test for a relation between the two models also had good model fit (χ2 (98, N = 902) = 306.615, p < .001, RMSEA = 0.049 [.042, .055], SRMR = 0.045, CFI = 0.963, and TLI = 0.955). The SEM-analysis between school experiences in influencing society and the students self-perceived action competence showed a significant positive relation of 0.397 for Knowledge of action possibilities, 0.344 for Confidence in one’s own influence, and 0,186 for Willingness to act. The results support previous research saying that an action-oriented approach where students can act on sustainability issues can help students develop action competence (Olsson et al., 2022; Sinakou et al., 2019). Through participatory approaches, participants can get opportunities on several fronts, including exercising their democratic rights and participating in decision-making and actions that promote justice, equality, and well-being for all (Reid et al., 2008). Thus, it might not always be enough to participate within the school. Participating in participatory action-oriented approaches in the students’ local communities can help students be engaged in defining what sustainability means to them in their local contexts (Fischer, 2012). By giving students opportunities to participate in and influence society, they can develop a belief that their actions matter, and help them develop action competence. At ECER in Glasgow, we invite to discussions on the relation between self-perceived action competence and the school experiences in influencing society as well as benefits and shortcomings of our findings.

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