This chapter, through an exploratory snapshot, aims to provide the first empirical work in the European context about the perceived effectiveness of sustainability education methods. Thus, based on a sample of 432 students from the Economics and Business Faculty of an Andalusian University (Southern Spain), this study identifies which methods are perceived as being most effective. The findings show that integrating sustainability into universities' strategic plans and implementing sustainability initiatives that actively involve the student through the development of strategic alliances with international universities and institutions, combined with the inclusion of field trips to learn about sustainability are perceived as the most relevant learning approaches.
TopIntroduction
Acting sustainably requires that the core of any activity encompasses three goals: social, environmental, and economic development (Elkington, 1994; Schaltegger& Wagner, 2011). Accordingly, an increasing number of organizations are committed to developing sustainable strategies (Casado-Belmonte et al., 2019). Education plays a central role in sustainability-related awareness, providing students with the attitudes, values and behaviours needed to achieve sustainable development goals.
Mainly, it is the responsibility of higher-education institutions to embed learning approaches concerning sustainability into their education programs as students will later be responsible for making decisions on sustainability-related issues in their communities and professions (Sahin & Erkal, 2017). Even if the concept of sustainability is not new, sustainability in management education is a relatively novel area (Erskine & Johnson, 2012). Given that students are likely to be engaged in sustainable businesses, initiatives on the part of education institutions to integrate sustainability content into their current courses have been undertaken (Singhal et al, 2018). In this vein, the United Nations proposed the establishment of Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) in 2007 as “an urgent call to modify business education in light of changing ideas about corporate citizenship, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability” (Alcaraz & Thiruvattal, 2010, p. 542). The United Nations PRME include six principles, the first of those stating “develop the capabilities of students to be future generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy” (Erskine & Johnson, 2012; PRME, 2013).
Erskine and Johnson (2012) and Singhal et al. (2018) identified 37 unique learning approaches based on 125 publicly available PRME Sharing of Information on Progress reports, drawn from the self-reports of business schools reporting their pedagogical experiences as members of business schools that support PRME. The contribution of these studies is of great value as it enables the attainment of a plethora of education methods, which makes it possible to identify the most effective learning approaches. Effective learning approaches are thought to take into consideration the preference of students, based on the assumption of the robust relationship between motivation or willingness to learn and actual learning (Erskine & Johnson, 2012; Cole et al., 2004; Karns, 2005; Zocco, 2009). Therefore, the study of student perceptions about education methods on sustainability and the adequacy of these methods could heighten the chances of more successful learning on sustainability-related issues (Erskine & Johnson, 2012).
It should also be noted that according to Dyllick and Muff (2016), what society and the planet need in the next two decades is nothing less than a sustainability miracle, and companies which are in a position to generate that miracle. Therefore, the world needs entrepreneurs and businesspeople who are truly committed to sustainability and who can mitigate and even overcome the conflicts between economic and financial demands and the needs of society. Thus, there is still time to initiate change from the universities; however, to do so, it is necessary to consider what the most effective techniques for teaching sustainability issues are.
Previous research has been conducted in North America and Asia to understand student preferences when learning about sustainability, however to the best of our knowledge, there are no empirical studies that analyse this issue in the European context. To address the current research gap, and utilizing as a sample, students of the Economics and Business Faculty of an Andalusian university (southern Spain), the purpose of this study is to recognize effective learning approaches as perceived by higher-education students in the context of sustainability and suggest improvement guidelines for universities and business schools. The methodology to develop this study is based on a structured questionnaire that assesses the perceived importance for a total of 37 learning approaches.
Findings provide a categorization of the 37 learning approaches as perceived by the students and enable the identification of the most effective ones. In such a way, the most effective teaching methods for the entire Economics and Business Faculty as well as for each degree are obtained. Moreover, building on the most effective learning approaches, this study proposes some guidelines on how to facilitate the integration of sustainability in academia, with a special focus on business and management university degrees.