Fostering Sustainability Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviours through a Tutor-Supported Interdisciplinary Course in Education for Sustainable Development

Mirjam Braßler and Sandra Sprenger
Additional contact information
Mirjam Braßler: Institute of Psychology, Universität Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
Sandra Sprenger: Faculty of Education, Universität Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-21

Abstract: Extant research into the efficacy of—especially interdisciplinary—higher education for sustainable development (HESD) is limited. A need exists to investigate students’ development of sustainability knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours. Furthermore, universities have experienced difficulties implementing interdisciplinary HESD because of organisational barriers due to monodisciplinary structures, as well as educators’ and students’ reservations. This study introduces an interdisciplinary approach to HESD and investigates its efficacy regarding students’ development of sustainability knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours at a university in Germany. The approach applies a series of lectures by different sustainability experts accompanied by several tutorials that support students’ interdisciplinary learning and teamwork towards an interdisciplinary sustainability product. Tutors were trained in interdisciplinary teaching methods, as well as interdisciplinary communication and conflict management, beforehand. Before participating in the interdisciplinary course, the students had a moderate level of sustainability knowledge and behaviour, and a high level of sustainability attitudes. The results from the pre–post-test analysis indicate an increase in students’ sustainability knowledge and behaviours, and no change in students’ sustainability attitudes. If typical barriers to interdisciplinarity are mitigated, interdisciplinary HESD can facilitate students’ development.

Keywords: higher education for sustainable development (HESD); project-based learning; tutor training; interdisciplinary learning; interdisciplinarity; sustainability knowledge; sustainability attitudes; sustainability behaviours (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/6/3494/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/6/3494/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:6:p:3494-:d:521650

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().