A methodology to assess the sustainability competencies in engineering undergraduate programs

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology to find out whether or not engineering students perceive sustainability learning throughout their studies at the university. The methodology is applied to students from Barcelona School of Informatics (FIB). The sustainability questionnaire of the EDINSOST project is used as a tool to determine student perception about their sustainability learning. The questionnaire contains 34 questions related to four sustainability competencies: (C1) Critical contextualization of knowledge establishing interrelations with social, economic and environmental, local and / or global problems, (C2) Sustainable use of resources and prevention of negative impacts on the natural and social environment, (C3) Participation in community processes that promote sustainability, and (C4) Application of ethical principles related to the values of sustainability in personal and professional behaviors. The questionnaire was submitted to the students of two first-year subjects and those who complete the Bachelor Thesis, with the aim of determining the initial level of sustainability that students have at the beginning of their studies with regard to that perceived when they graduate. The results show that students declare an improvement in the sustainability learning in the 34 questions analyzed, and that the competency of which they perceive to learn the most is ‘‘participation in community processes that promote sustainability’’. On the other hand, the competency in which they perceive themselves less prepared is the ‘‘application of ethical principles related to the values of sustainability in personal and professional behaviors’’.