Development and validation of the education for sustainable development school organisation questionnaire

Abstract

Empirically based tools to map education for sustainable development within school organisations are not readily available, which is both a cause and a consequence of the scarce empirical and quantitative research on school organisations and education for sustainable development. In present study, the Education for Sustainable Development School Organisation Questionnaire (ESD-SOQ) was developed and validated. This instrument measures the organisational characteristics of an ESD-effective school. During the development and validation of the ESD-SOQ different steps were taken. First, data from prior research was consulted to draft the initial scales. These were further refined via cognitive interviews (n = 3) and consulting critical peers (n = 7). Next a pilot study (n = 108) was set out to retain the best items per scale and thus reduce the size and load of the questionnaire. Finally, a large-scale validation study (n = 764) ensured the reliability, the content validity, the cognitive validity and the construct validity of the final instrument. Based on the findings of our development and validation study, ESD-SOQ proves to be a valid and reliable instrument for the investigation school organisational characteristics related to education for sustainable development.

Keywords:

• Education for sustainable development
• school organisations
• questionnaire development
• questionnaire validation

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our colleagues, Evelyn Goffin and Wanda Sass, who revised the English translation of the questionnaire.

Notes

1 All factor loadings were statistically significant: p < 0.005

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.