Measuring the educational impacts of a graduate course on sustainable development

Abstract

While university‐level education is increasingly recognized as an important component of sustainable approaches to development, little empirical research has been done on the impact of sustainability education on student behavior. This study relies on an evidence‐based research approach to better understand how graduate coursework on sustainable development can facilitate learning and transform the perceptions and reported behavior of class participants. Specifically, the authors use ecological footprint analysis in an interdisciplinary graduate‐level course on sustainable development to make statistical conclusions about the degree to which education on sustainability influences students’ daily consumption patterns. The results of this study suggest that graduate‐level education can significantly increase the degree to which students behave in a sustainable manner as measured by their ecological footprints.

Acknowledgements

This article is based on research supported in part by the US National Science Foundation Grant No. CMS‐0346673 to the Texas A&M University. The findings and opinions reported are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the funding organization or those who provided assistance with various aspects of the study. We are particularly grateful to Dr Teow H. Kwa for graciously allowing us to survey students in his class.

Notes

1. For a more detailed description on the history of sustainability in higher education, see Wright (2002).

2. For a more detailed discussion on this topic, see Environmental Education Research, Special Issue, Volume 10, Number 1: Case‐study research in environmental education.

3. The four footprint components were combined into a single variable. A Cronbach’s alpha of 0.7 indicates that the composite variable is reliable and has good internal consistency.