Sustainable schools programmes: what influence on schools and how do we know?

Abstract

This paper focuses on our experience of researching the influence of ResourceSmart Schools, a sustainable schools programme in Victoria, Australia. Drawing on ideas from programme theory and realist synthesis, we illustrate and reflect upon our approach to conceptualising, investigating and generating evidence about the programme’s impacts and influence in participating schools. This distinction is deliberate: it helps distinguish between efforts to understand the impacts that a programme has within schools (programme impact), and efforts to understand what it is about a programme that is influential in bringing about those impacts (programme influence). Drawing on evidence from our work in this project and the wider literature, we argue for a more nuanced discussion and more sophisticated investigations into the complexities of programme influence, rather than impacts only. Our conclusions suggest key areas of development for our own work, the provision of environmental and sustainability education, and their evaluation and research more broadly.

Keywords:

• sustainable schools
• school sustainability
• programme evaluation
• programme influence
• programme theory
• realist synthesis

Acknowledgements

This research is based on an evaluation of the Resource Smart Schools programme commissioned by Sustainability Victoria. We’d like to thank the participants at the RSS stakeholder verification event in 2014, and the research meetings of AAEE 2014 and AERA 2015, for their valuable feedback on the process and our arguments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.