Abstract

Action competence consists of the knowledge, willingness, and self-efficacy for contributing to a controversial issue such as sustainable development. As such, action competence in sustainable development (ACiSD) is a desired outcome of education for sustainable development (ESD). Still, the scarce instruments for measuring ACiSD that have been developed to date, are not specifically designed for early adolescence, when civic involvement is developed. Therefore, this study reports on the development of such a measurement instrument: the Action Competence in Sustainable Development Questionnaire (ACiSD-Q). A mixed-method approach in four steps used three different samples: after a literature review (step 1), early adolescents (n = 75) informed the generation of an initial item pool (step 2; qualitative). After assessment of the scale’s content validity it was administered to a second sample (n = 403) to test psychometric properties (step 3; quantitative). Finally, rigorous statistical analyses (third sample, n = 1796) confirmed the proposed structure, reliability, construct, and predictive validity of the final ACiSD-Q (step 4; quantitative). Our findings support a valid and reliable third-order model, fit for monitoring ESD efforts that aim to enhance early adolescents’ action competence in sustainable development.

摘要

行动能力包括对可持续发展等有争议的问题做出贡献的知识、意愿和自我效能。因此，可持续发展中的行动能力 (ACiSD) 是可持续发展教育 (ESD) 的理想结果。尽管如此，迄今为止开发的测量 ACiSD 的稀缺工具并不是专门为早期的青春期设计的，那时公民参与已经发展。因此，本研究报告了这样一种测量工具的开发：可持续发展调查问卷（ACiSD-Q）中的行动能力。一个包含四个步骤的混合方法使用三个不同的样本：在文献回顾（步骤 1）之后，早期青少年（n = 75）告知初始项目池的生成（步骤 2；定性）。在评估量表的内容有效性后，将其用于第二个样本 ( n  = 403) 以测试心理测量特性（步骤 3；定量）。最后，严格的统计分析（第三个样本，n  = 1796）证实了最终 ACiSD-Q（步骤 4；定量）的拟议结构、可靠性、构造和预测有效性。我们的研究结果支持有效且可靠的三阶模型，适用于监测旨在提高早期青少年在可持续发展中的行动能力的可持续发展教育努力。