• Energy Research

For restructuring educational processes and institutions toward Sustainable Development, teachers’ knowledge and competences are crucial. Due to the high relevance of teachers’ content knowledge, this study aimed to (i) assess Sustainable Development-relevant knowledge by differentiating between situational, conceptual and procedural knowledge, (ii) find out via item response theory modelling how these theoretically distinguished knowledge types can be empirically supported, and (iii) link the knowledge dimension(s) to related constructs. We developed a paper-and-pencil test to assess these three knowledge types (N = 314). A two-dimensional structure that combines situational and conceptual knowledge and that distinguishes situational/conceptual knowledge from procedural knowledge, fits the data best (EAP/PV situational/conceptual: 0.63; EAP/PV procedural: 0.67). Student teachers at master level outperformed bachelor level students in situational/conceptual knowledge but master level students did not differ from students at bachelor level regarding procedural knowledge. We observed only slight correlations between the two knowledge dimensions and the content-related motivational orientations of professional action competence. Student teachers’ deficits in procedural knowledge can be attributed to the small number of Education for Sustainable Development-relevant courses attended. Systematically fostering procedural knowledge in teacher education could promote achieving cognitive learning objectives associated with Sustainable Development Goals in the long term.

To cope with biodiversity and climate change challenges, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) needs to emphasize knowledge that considers multiple perspectives. Optimizing teacher education requires knowledge about the prerequisites of student teachers. The latter includes content knowledge with respect to Sustainable Development (SD). Apart from situational and conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge (containing solution strategies) is of special interest, but it is much more difficult to measure. Thus, this study aims at developing a refined procedure to measure SD-relevant procedural knowledge and to define a measure for such knowledge, including a suitable benchmark for its evaluation. As SD-relevant knowledge, the SD challenges biodiversity loss and climate change were focused on. For operationalizing these challenges, the highly relevant contexts insects and pollination and peatland use were chosen. For both SD challenges and contexts, potential solution strategies were identified by a literature review. A procedure was then tested to measure procedural knowledge. The procedure includes a two-round expert survey (Delphi approach) with an in-between think-aloud study with student teachers. The described innovative procedure resulted in a measure (18 items) to assess procedural knowledge of student teachers via effectiveness estimations of provided solution strategies. This measure contains procedural knowledge items that are related to prior presented scenarios regarding the two contexts and a benchmark to evaluate these items. The benchmark derives from the second round of the Delphi study. The procedure and the developed final instrument include expertise from multiple disciplines such as ESD, SD, biodiversity, insect and pollination, climate change and peatland use. The sophisticated procedure can be transferred to challenging measurement developments. Furthermore, the measure provided for SD-relevant knowledge can be applied to other target groups in upper secondary and in higher education within ESD.