Abstract

When it comes to what higher education students know about sustainability, where they learn matters. In this study, we explore the extent to which students’ level of sustainability knowledge differed according to where they previously learned about the environment. In an online survey administered to undergraduate students enrolled at Michigan State University, a large university in the Midwestern region of the United States, we found a significant relationship between students’ level of sustainability knowledge and their environmental learning source. Environmental knowledge gained in the classroom, both at the secondary and postsecondary levels, had the strongest (positive) influence on students’ present sustainability knowledge, while there was a significant (negative) relationship between how frequently students gathered knowledge from their parents and their level of knowledge. Results from this study suggest that instructors need to be intentional about the types of prior knowledge they use as a springboard when teaching students about sustainability.

摘要

当谈到高等教育学生对可持续性的了解时，他们在哪里学习很重要。在这项研究中，我们探索了学生的可持续性知识水平根据他们之前对环境的了解程度不同的程度。在对美国中西部地区一所大型大学密歇根州立大学的本科生进行的在线调查中，我们发现学生的可持续性知识水平与其环境学习来源之间存在显着关系。在课堂上获得的环境知识，无论是在中学还是中学后，对学生目前的可持续性知识都有最强（积极）的影响，而学生从父母那里收集知识的频率与其知识水平之间存在显着（负）关系。这项研究的结果表明，在向学生教授可持续性时，教师需要有意识地将他们用作跳板的先验知识类型。