Measuring grade 10 students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes of sustainable development

Abstract

In Lebanon, since 1990, successive Governments have stressed the priority of education and the development of its potentials to enable it to contribute to sustainable human development. However, these approaches were never evaluated by standardised measures that might monitor evidence of changes in the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours among students concerning sustainable development (SD). This study has two main objectives: (a) to establish a baseline on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of Lebanese tenth grade students towards SD, b) to assess the impact of type of school, gender, presence of environmental club in school and being a member in the environmental club in school on the levels of knowledge, attitudes and skills of SD. The study was conducted in 20 schools in administrative Beirut region (12 private and eight public). The sample consisted of 437 students who completed a developed questionnaire that included items involving all SD pillars: social, environmental and economic. Results showed that students’ SD knowledge, attitudes and skills were relatively high where the average mean of students’ answers on items concerning social pillar was greater than that of the environmental pillar which in turn was greater than that of the economic pillar. Environmental club membership manifestly promoted SD knowledge, skills and attitudes. Gender influence was conspicuous in the results of SD attitudes and skills where female students excelled over male students. The Lebanese government should affirm its commitment by: adopting policies and strategies on SD to put more focus on the role of Education for sustainable development, ensuring efficient integration of SD into the curriculum, establishing SD clubs and encouraging students’ enrolment into it.

Keywords: Sustainability, education for sustainable development, knowledge, attitude, skills, environmental club.