Session Information
99 ERC SES 04 I, Communities, Families, and Schooling in Educational Research
Paper Session
Contribution
Current societies are characterized by their complexity and globalization, as they must face different global challenges that manifest themselves on a local and regional scale, such as the climate crisis and economic and social inequalities. In order to understand these situations, it is essential to learn how to adapt to these constant changes that seem to become more accentuated over time. Knowledge of these phenomena can help us to understand our attitudes and behaviors in the environment, to contribute so as to benefit it with favorable actions and change those that can harm it. Sustainability competencies are understood as the combination of cognitive skills, practical abilities, and ethical values and attitudes that empower individuals and communities to contribute to sustainability (Bianchi et al., 2022; Brundiers et al). The European Framework of Sustainability competences GreenComp was recently published in order to promote and enrich educational programs so that students develop habits, processes and attitudes in favor of sustainability and public health (Bianchi et al, 2022).
This research aims, on the one hand, to inform about the diversity of competences that have been assessed and plenty of instruments that have been designed, validated and applied to measure these competencies in school context and, in the other hand, to communicate about the role of climate school assemblies in the sustainability competencies students’ achievement (EDUCLIMAD project). The EDUCLIMAD project aims to implement school assemblies for the climate as an innovative, democratic and collaborative methodology to learn, deliberate, make informed decisions and search for solutions in a critical and committed way, to deal with climate change and promote sustainability at a local and regional level. Therefore, the school climate assemblies are considered as an innovative, democratic and collaborative methodology to learn, deliberate, make informed decisions and seek solutions in a critical and committed manner to address climate change and promote local and regional sustainability, as well as to achieve the competences in sustainability, established in the European GreenComp framework (Bianchi et al, 2022).
The main research questions guiding this doctoral research are: 1) What are the different sustainability competencies’ assessment approaches and tools used in Secondary Education? 2)How can effective assessment tools be designed to measure students' sustainability competencies?; 3) What is the influence of school climate assemblies in the development of sustainability competencies amongst students?. Following the PRISMA guidelines, a systematic review was conducted related to sustainability competencies’ assessment in secondary education. The evaluation resources used in the different investigations are interviews, discussion groups, workshops, drawings and pre and post questionnaires, being the latter the most used to evaluate sustainability competencies among students. These results also reflect the current state of evaluation and offer interesting implications for educators, teachers and researchers working on the development and acquisition of sustainability competencies in secondary education. Moreover, provides detailed information on the influence of climate assemblies on sustainability competencies’ assessment among students through a pre- and post-test instrument related on sustainability behaviors and contextualized situations related to the sustainability competences proposed by the European GreenComp framework (2022). To sum up, this research addresses the challenge of designing competence-based Education for Sustainability, where clear pedagogical and assessment strategies must be defined, tested and documented on how learners develop these competencies to contribute to a collective sustainable social transformation of our societies, specifically focusing on educational context.
Method
Following the PRISMA guidelines, a systematic review was conducted related to sustainability competencies’ assessment in secondary education, based on analyzing 35 original articles related to this topic. A systematic search protocol has been followed to determine eligibility criteria, sources of information, data extraction and analysis so as to ensure transparent and rigorous criteria. This research is based on the implementation of an educational intervention that includes the methodological approach to implement climate assemblies in schools in order to promote the active engagement of students and their communities in the co-creation of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. Based on existing experiences of citizen climate assemblies, the school climate assemblies adopt a three-phase process related to their design and implementation. The first phase is preparatory and material design, including the design of a methodological guide for the creation and implementation of school climate assemblies and the creation of educational resources aligned with the European Commission's GreenComp sustainability competency framework (Bianchi et al, 2022). The second phase consists of the organization and development of school climate assemblies in high schools and the elaboration of an action plan and policy recommendations by the participating educational communities. The policy actions resulting from the students' analysis are conceptualized and a record is made of their frequency (number of times the action was voted on). The last phase contemplates the evaluation and dissemination of the results, the educational resources designed and learning derived from the project to agents of the territory including policy makers and other educational centers in the district. Finally, the proposals generated will be presented to different educational agents, local entities and policy makers in an event that can bring them all together. To evaluate the level of sustainability competencies of the students, a quantitative instrument has been passed to the students before and after carrying out the assemblies. This instrument consists of a questionnaire related to sustainability behaviors with 4 Likert-type response possibilities: (1) disagree, (2) neither agree nor disagree, (3) agree and (4) totally agree. Besides, 4 contextualized situations are proposed, each of them related to the competence area established by the European GreenComp framework: Embodying sustainability values, Embracing complexity in sustainability, Envisioning sustainable futures and Acting for sustainability. Each of these situations is divided into 3 questions related to the 3 competencies included in each competence area, 12 competencies as a whole.
Expected Outcomes
In relation to the first research question (What are the different sustainability competencies’ assessment approaches and tools used in Secondary Education?), the findings show that most of the interventions used as an assessment tool was questionnaires, most of them combined with another qualitative instruments like interviews or focus groups to gain a more comprehensive understanding of sustainability competencies’ development. Answering the second research question (How can effective assessment tools be designed to measure students' sustainability competencies?) the results obtained through the designed instrument highlights the need to combine it with more qualitative resources like focus groups. Therefore, further research should, on the one hand, focus on identifying and validating additional instruments for assessing sustainability competencies in these educational levels, and on the other hand, should combine different quantitative and qualitative assessment tools focused on sustainability competencies’ development among students. Finally, the results of the third question (What is the influence of school climate assemblies in the development of sustainability competencies amongst students?), school assemblies can contribute to the development of sustainability competencies in high school students associated with interpersonal competence and collective action, which focus on acting for change in collaboration with others and promote students' capacity and willingness to engage in democratic processes to achieve more sustainable societies. In particular, the climate school assemblies’ aspects that students highlighted as positive were active participation, new knowledge and learning, awareness, reflection, collaboration, teamwork and dynamism. This approach also has the potential to inform and influence policy making through the identification of priorities where community learning and action can make a significant contribution to addressing the challenges of climate change and sustainability. This research is considered of scientific relevance because it presents the methodological conceptualization for implementing climate assemblies in educational centers and offers valuable learning from deliberative processes on climate change for other educational institutions (Cebrián et al 2023).
References
Bianchi, G., Pisiotis, U. and Cabrera Giraldez, M. (2022). GreenComp The European sustainability competence framework, Punie, Y. and Bacigalupo, M. editor(s), EUR 30955 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2022, ISBN 978-92-76-46485-3, doi:10.2760/13286, JRC128040. Brundiers, K., Barth, M., Cebrián, G., Cohen, M., Diaz, L., Doucette-Remington, S., Dripps, W., Habron, G., Harré, N., Jarchow, M., Losch, K., Michel, J., Mochizuki, Y., Rieckmann, M., Parnell, R., Walker, P., & Zint, M. (2021). Key competencies in sustainability in higher education—toward an agreed-upon reference framework, Sustainability Science, 16, 13-29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-020-00838-2 Cebrián, G., Boqué, A., Camarero, M., Junyent, M., Moraleda, A., Olano, JX & Renta, AI (2023). Las asambleas escolares por el clima: una herramienta para empoderar a la comunidad educativa en la acción climática, en M. Sánchez-Moreno & J. López-Yáñez (eds) Construir comunidades en la escuela. ISBN 978-84-277-3098-4 Finnegan, W. (2022). Educating for Hope and Action Competence: A study of secondary school students and teachers in England. Environmental Education Research, 29(11), 1617-1636. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2022.2120963 Olsson, D., Gericke, N., Sass, W., & Pauw, J. B. (2020). Self-perceived Action Competence for Sustainability: the theoretical grounding and empirical validation of a novel research instrument. Environmental Education Research, 26(5), 742-760. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2020.1736991 Sass, W., Pauw, J. B., De Mæyer, S., & Van Petegem, P. (2021). Development and validation of an instrument for measuring action competence in sustainable development within early Adolescents: the Action Competence in Sustainable Development Questionnaire (ACISD-Q). Environmental Education Research, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2021.1888887
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