Measuring professional action competence in education for sustainable development (PACesd)

Abstract

Based on the concept of action competence, the current study introduces an integrated framework of Professional Action Competence in Education for Sustainable Development (PACesd) described by three defining features: willingness, knowledge of pedagogical approaches, and self-efficacy. To validate this framework, we developed a questionnaire measurement instrument: ‘PACesd-Q’. This questionnaire was administered to a sample of 557 primary and secondary school in-service teachers in Flanders, Belgium. The instrument’s psychometric quality was assessed in terms of its reliability, construct, and criterion-related validity. Results of reliability analysis and hierarchical (second-order) confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence of good measurement properties of the instrument in terms of reliability and construct and criterion-related validity. We suggest the instrument can be successfully used to provide educational practitioners with a tool to monitor and eventually identify professional development needs regarding education for sustainable development.

Keywords:

• Professional action competence
• self-efficacy
• willingness
• pedagogical content knowledge
• education for sustainable development

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all participating schools and respondents for their constructive cooperation and feedback. We thoroughly appreciated the feedback and comments on the initial draft of the questionnaire received from the members of the VALIES advisory board and core team. We are especially grateful to Eli Janssen for her great involvement in the initiation of this study. Finally, we greatly valued the thoughtful and constructive comments of the journal’s editor and anonymous reviewers, as well as the great care with which the production team honored our work.

Ethics

In all data collections the ethical guidelines and advice of the researchers’ institution were observed (the University of Antwerp Ethics Committee for Social and Human Sciences, approval number SHW_18_25).

Additional information

Funding

This study is part of the VALIES project and is funded by the Flanders Research Foundation (FWO) under grant agreement S010317N within the Strategic Basic Research program.