Measuring the knowledge, awareness, attitudes, and behaviors of Filipino Teacher education students toward sustainability during the pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 crisis has immensely impacted the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals. The integration of the SDG in the teacher education curriculum could contribute to the intensification of the SDG which is called for among higher education institutions. Hence, this article assessed 238 randomly selected pre-service teachers’ knowledge, awareness, attitudes, and behavior toward sustainability during the pandemic. The study applied correlation design through an online survey complemented with a qualitative approach. ANOVA and multiple regression were applied as inferential statistics. Students who were actively engaged in sustainability efforts during quarantine served as discussants during the Focus Group Discussion. Findings revealed that a significant relationship exists among the variables of knowledge, awareness, attitudes, and behavior toward sustainability. However, only awareness and attitudes can predict their behavior toward sustainability. Based on the illustrative examples in the qualitative results, students’ attitudes and beliefs about sustainability include engaging in sustainable teaching-learning practices, project-based learning, environmental practices, introspection, and school-community collaboration. In addition, the sustainability practices of the students during the pandemic included tree planting, conserving resources, recycling, and campaigning for the environment. Utilizing the proposed SUSTAINtegrate toolkit is a useful teaching resource to incorporate the critical principle of sustainability into the curriculum. Educational institutions can promote awareness about sustainability through project-based learning and integrate sustainability into the teaching syllabus, instructional materials, and teaching-learning practices. Environmental and educational sustainability attitudes should be fostered among the students through introspection, school-community collaboration, and a value-laden sustainable society.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19
• sustainable development goals
• education for sustainable development
• sustainability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).