Santa Clara University
ER-13: Sustainability Literacy Assessment

Copies of the questions are posted on http://www.scu.edu/sustainability/education/fellowship.cfm.

Undergraduate students earned Fellowships in 2008, 2009, and 2010 to conduct this research. Each student worked with the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, the Office of Sustainability, and expert faculty members to develop the studies. In 2008, a qualitative study was developed to measure how sustainability had penetrated into student culture. This was done through interviews, participant observation, and group interviews. Students, faculty, and staff were not chosen randomly, they were chosen selectively. Each participant was chosen for one or more of the following: to represent a diversity of majors, departments, and job positions, because other informants suggested them as interesting potential interviewees, and/or because the researchers had little to no previous knowledge of one another, and thus might more easily avoid research bias. In 2009, a qualitative study was developed for all undergraduate students. In 2010 this survey, with an additional section specific to the participants, was extended to faculty, staff, and graduate students.

In the 2008 study, 58 students, 2 faculty members, and 5 staff members participated in open-ended interviews. In 2009, a quantitative study was done to counter the qualitative study in 2008 through the distribution of an online survey to all undergraduate students. In 2010, this survey, with an additional section specific to the participants, was extended to faculty, staff, and graduate students with 511 responses (73 faculty 125 staff members, 247 graduate students).

In 2008 it was found that the undergraduate students participating in the focus groups varied widely in their views on sustainability. On one end, many students said one should act sustainably as long is it does not interfere with economic health or lifestyle. The other side contained students who were actively involved in sustainability and environmental initiatives on campus. In the 2009 study, it was apparent that students still largely connected sustainability with the environment more than any other aspect of the term (economy, social justice). Largely, students connected sustainable practices to practices that reduced global warming. The study in 2010 confirmed this narrow definition of sustainability as well as a lack of awareness of effective behaviors.