Education for Sustainable Development in Spanish Engineering Degrees. Case study

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to present a methodology for analyzing the perception of engineering students about the sustainability learning they have achieved during their university studies. This study has been carried out in the context of the Spanish university system. Specifically, the opinion of 3364 students from nine engineering degrees taught at three universities is analyzed. In the framework of the EDINSOST project, a questionnaire of 34 questions related to four sustainability competencies has been designed and validated. To measure the learning declared by the students, composite indicators have been constructed and validated using factor analysis. The results show that students consider that they have achieved only two thirds of the sustainability competencies they should have on completion of their studies (66.3%). In the nine degrees, the worst results are obtained for the competency “application of ethical principles related to the values of sustainability”, in which the fourth-year students declare having achieved, on average, only 53% of the expected learning outcomes. These results clearly show that engineering degrees should devote more time and effort to include Education for Sustainable Development in the curriculum. The methodology proposed in this work can be easily replicated in other contexts and in other countries.