Sustainability in higher education: A needs assessment on a course “Education and awareness for sustainability”

Education for sustainability is an evolving concept that encourages people to think about their responsibilities for creating a sustainable future. The roots of this concept go back to 1960s-1970s when the environmental education movement gained momentum. The evolution of environmental education in the 80’s developed around so called, green environment, and with the renewed efforts to reconcile the economy with the environment under Agenda 21. From these events, new aims were introduced including the reorientation of education towards sustainability with a particular emphasis on public awareness and the role of training of young people. Prior meetings and research has made gains in sustainability for higher education. Thus, in order to better understand the reflections of this concept on higher education and to understand the framework and trends of sustainability in higher education, it may be useful to look at the declarations summarized chronologically in Table 1 (Wright, 2002). The term sustainable development and its relationship with the environment were extensively identified in many of these declarations. After the Thessaloniki Declaration (UNESCO, 1997), the Earth Charter in 2000 on the principles and aspiration on sustainable development, the 2001 Lüneburg Declaration on the higher education for sustainable development and the 2002 Ubuntu Declaration on education, science and technology for sustainable development were realized for the integration of sustainable development concepts in education (dé Rebello, D., 2003). Universities have been challenged to adopt the principles of these declarations and many have signed agreements to be sustainable (Wright, 2002). Some have integrated these principles in their policies. As indicated by Herremans and Reid (2002), for example, in order to make the students understand the concept of sustainability and stewardship, models and processes must be created during the instruction that will help construct a bridge between the real world and the classroom. They represent a model that includes economic, social and environmental values. The overlapping area of these three values addresses the concept of sustainable development. Furthermore, in 2002, UNESCO dedicated 2005-2014 as the UN Decade Education for Sustainable Development, for the international implementation of the concept throughout world (UNESCO-CONNECT, 2005).

Table 1. Chronological order of some selected declarations associated with sustainability in higher education.

Year	Declaration
1972	The Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment
1977	Tbilisi Declaration
1990	The Talloires Declaration
1991	The Halifax Declaration
1992	Report of the UN Conference on Environment and Development - Chapter 36
1993	The Kyoto Declaration
1994	CRE Copernicus Charter
1997	Declaration of Thessaloniki
2000	Earth Charter
2001	Lüneburg Declaration
2002	Ubuntu Decleration

Developing university students’ awareness of sustainability is a complex process. Incorporating sustainability into university policy, curriculum (de Ciurana & Filho, 2006) and decisions (Moore, 2005) will provide opportunities to become aware of this concept and its contributions. Integrating the concept into the university curriculum, which plays a great role in shaping the society, will orient society towards a sustainable life. It will help university students look at their profession with a wider angle and help them integrate the concept with their own subject (de Ciurana & Filho, 2006). In order to obtain the desired outcome of developing awareness on sustainability, the questions that need to be answered are: “Where are we now?”; “Where do we want to be?”; and “How will we get there”. These questions were identified by Cook (2005) as three basic points of the learning needs assessment process. Need indicates the gap between the current (present) state and the desired state. It also refers to what is required and/or desired to fill the discrepancy (Witkin & Altschuld, 1995). Sometimes, it refers to determining problems coming out and pertaining. In the professional educational literature, researchers tend to categorize the needs assessment under the broader heading of program evaluation (Stufflebeam et al., 1984). Conducting a need assessment (NA) with the target group assists in determining what needs exist and how these needs should be addressed. Determining needs and improving and/or developing the instruction and curriculum based on these emerging needs enable learners to be more responsible for their learning process. If the needs of students are more fully integrated into the course implementation, learning the main concepts will be more meaningful, and students will be more willing to attend the course and learn the concepts. Therefore, in order to make the instruction more effective and more efficient, learners’ needs must be considered.

The available literature indicated that there is no study in Turkey dealing with needs and expectations of students in higher education in the area of education for sustainable development. The research that may be related to the subject dealt with investigating the needs and expectations of graduate students who would become faculty staff in the future (Akpinar & Paykoc, 2004), and also with the current views and expectations of undergraduate students in terms of instructional strategies used during the lectures, facilities offered and faculty and staff (Pinar et al., 2005). It is believed that present study will be one of the initial studies in this area and will shed light on course development studies on education for sustainable development in the context of higher education.

Purpose

The purpose of the study was to make an assessment on the needs of university students regarded to be aware of environmental problems and sustainable development concept introduced in an undergraduate course. Their needs related to the aims of the course, instructional methods and media and evaluation methods were explored during NA.