Higher education is increasingly expected to prepare students to contribute to societal change under conditions of poly-crisis, characterised by intersecting ecological, social, political, and technological disruptions. In such contexts, sustainability challenges are not only complex but also uncertain, contested, and time-pressured. Environmental and sustainability education (ESE) has responded to these expectations primarily through competence frameworks that emphasise cognitive capacities such as systems thinking and problem analysis (Wiek et al., 2011; Brundiers et al., 2021; Bianchi, 2022). While these capacities remain important, poly-crisis conditions foreground a complementary challenge: students’ willingness, confidence, and capacity to act, collaborate, and implement change in practice.

This contribution addresses this challenge by focusing on affective–behavioral change agency (ABCA), understood as students’ developing disposition and capacity to engage in change-oriented action. ABCA captures dimensions of agency that are particularly salient in poly-crisis contexts, where acting often involves navigating uncertainty, coordinating with diverse actors, and persisting despite limited control over outcomes. Although such dimensions are central to theoretical accounts of sustainability education and action competence (Jensen & Schnack, 1997; Redman & Wiek, 2021; Sass et al., 2020), they remain under-examined empirically in higher education research. Existing studies continue to privilege cognitive learning outcomes, in part because these are more readily operationalised and measured with established instruments (Rogaten et al., 2019; Probst, 2022).

The study presented in this proposal examines how experiential pedagogies relate to the development of ABCA across sustainability-oriented master’s programmes. Experiential pedagogies are conceptualised as educational approaches that emphasise authentic engagement with real-world issues, structured collaboration, and student agency within open-ended project contexts (Kolb, 2014; Breunig, 2005). Such pedagogies are frequently advocated as appropriate responses to the complexity of sustainability challenges, yet longitudinal evidence on how they shape students’ affective–behavioral agency over time remains scarce (Burch et al., 2019). Addressing this gap, the study is guided by the following research question: How do experiential pedagogies shape students’ affective–behavioral change agency during their master’s programmes?

The proposed Ignite Talk presents the study at the point of initial field deployment, when survey instruments have been piloted and ethical approval is being finalised. Rather than reporting outcomes, the contribution foregrounds two methodological challenges that are particularly relevant for ESE research engaging with poly-crisis conditions: recruiting students at programme entry and managing retention and attrition over time. The session invites reflection on how such challenges affect the study of affective-behavioral agency and how ESE research might better align its methodological practices with the complex realities of sustainability education in higher education.

The study employs a longitudinal, multi-wave survey design to examine how experiential pedagogies relate to the development of affective–behavioral change agency (ABCA) across sustainability-oriented master’s programmes. The research is conducted across multiple sustainability-oriented master’s programmes within a single European higher education institution. This design allows for examining variation in students’ exposure to experiential pedagogies while remaining within a coherent institutional and policy context shaped by European sustainability and green competence frameworks. Participants are recruited at programme entry and followed across successive measurement waves corresponding to key phases in the master’s trajectory. The benchmarking measurement (T1) captures students’ baseline levels of affective–behavioral change agency at entry, alongside relevant background characteristics. Subsequent waves (T2 and T3) capture changes in ABCA as students engage with experiential pedagogical elements such as authentic projects, structured collaboration, and agency-supportive learning environments. ABCA is operationalised through self-report survey items capturing three interrelated dimensions: action competence (e.g. willingness and confidence to initiate change-oriented action), implementation competence (e.g. translating plans into action and adapting to constraints), and interpersonal competence (e.g. collaborating, coordinating, and working across perspectives). Survey instruments have been developed and refined through pilot testing to ensure clarity, feasibility, and respondent burden are appropriate for repeated administration across programme phases.

As the study is at the point of initial field deployment, the expected outcomes of this contribution are primarily conceptual, methodological, and orientational rather than confirmatory. Empirically, the longitudinal design is expected to reveal differentiated patterns in students’ affective–behavioral change agency (ABCA) across programme phases and pedagogical contexts. In line with existing theory, exposure to authentic, partner-facing projects is anticipated to be more strongly associated with implementation-related dimensions of ABCA, while sustained structured collaboration is expected to relate more closely to interpersonal dimensions. Agency-supportive elements, such as student autonomy in project scoping and decision-making, are expected to be reflected in changes in action-related dimensions over time. These expectations are presented as hypotheses to be examined, not as established findings. At a methodological level, the study is expected to generate insights into the feasibility and limits of longitudinal survey designs for studying agency development in sustainability-oriented higher education. Patterns of recruitment, retention, and attrition across measurement waves are anticipated to highlight how curricular timing, programme structure, and student trajectories shape participation and data quality. Making these dynamics visible is expected to contribute to ongoing discussions within environmental and sustainability education (ESE) research about how agency, particularly affective–behavioral dimensions, can be empirically captured under conditions of uncertainty and complexity.

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