European Science Education Research Association ESERA
Abstract
This study aims to provide new information on the contribution of Education for sustainable development (ESD) on grade nine students’ self-efficacy beliefs concerning their own ability and competence to contribute to sustainable development. Self-efficacy is a construct that theorists impute an important role upon as causation for action. A nationally representative sample of 2361 Finnish 9th graders from 49 schools were, together with their subjects teachers (n=442) and headmasters (n=49) surveyed on issues relating to education for sustainable development, school culture and teaching approaches. A combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses was used to test construct validity of the instrument. Multilevel regression models were used to explain differences in students’ selfefficacy beliefs concerning sustainable development. Results show that individual level variables (biocentric values, interest in sustainable development, knowledge about environmental issues, and experiences with sustainability at school) explained most of the variation in students’ self-efficacy. Furthermore, the results show that if schools score high on school culture indicators for implementation of sustainable development, nd for internal cooperation and cooperation with external bodies, their students will show a higher selfefficacy. Finally, the results also show that teachers can directly increase their students’ selfefficacy through inquiry-based and interactive teaching methods. These results illustrate that teaching approaches and school culture can enhance students’ self-efficacy beliefs in ecological sustainable behaviours, and thus that schools can be effective actors in sustainable development.Peer reviewe
