An exploration of student learning for sustainability through the WikiRate student engagement project

Abstract

This paper uses student perspectives on learning to highlight the potential contribution of the WikiRate platform to develop knowledge, skills, attitudes and sustainability mindsets of future business leaders. WikiRate originates from a project with a mission of "crowdsourcing better companies" throughanalysis of their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance. The project identified a need for an open public repository of data tracking companies' ESG performance, on the grounds that while corporate social responsibility reporting is conducted in public, there are barriers to accessing information in a standardised format. WikiRate provides an open repository for data along with tools for analysis, allowing business students to participate in its interpretation. Seeing potential for this pedagogical innovation to help develop the next generation of responsible managers and leaders, educators in business schools in five countries carried out a survey of 1575 student users of WikiRate to explore what they had learned. Analysis of responses from 549 students using a grounded theory approach found that WikiRate extended students' knowledge, skills and attitudes on several dimensions. The findings suggest that use of WikiRate is a valuable addition to a growing number of open source platforms designed to contribute to the development of competences for sustainability.

An Analysis of Sustainability Integration in Business School Curricula: Evidence from Korea

“…Hankyung Business is an authoritative, weekly newspaper published in South Korea that covers domestic and international economic issues and industrial trends. Since 2008, it has conducted an annual, nationwide evaluation of business schools by surveying human resource managers from 200 to 300 companies in Korea on the basis of nine dimensions: (1) professional relevance of education; (2) organizational adaptability; (3) organizational cohesion; (4) potential to develop; (5) creativity; (6) globalized curriculum; (7) diligence and responsibility; (8) preference for new employee recruitment; and (9) admission recommendation. Rankings for each dimension are added together and an overall ranking is determined.…”

“…However, while many studies affirm the importance of blending sustainability in higher education and even offer frameworks and tools to incorporate sustainability in university culture and curricula [5][6][7][8][9], there is little recent research that examines the state of sustainability integration in higher education-particularly for Asian economies such as South Korea. This includes an exploration of core sustainability themes and keywords in business courses over time, as well as the depth of sustainability integration.…”

Advancing Sustainability Education in Business Studies through Digital Service Learning

“…Purposeful design of pedagogical activities is essential to engage students in learning that is experienced first-hand, has personal meaning, and that can translate into effective social change. By providing opportunities for students to develop their own opinions around social and environmental organisational performance, they learn to construct professional identities and a sustainably ethos (Wersun et al 2019).…”

“…Educators have a responsibility to engage students through thought-provoking, innovative and action-developing activities, in order to strive for a more sustainable future (Wersun et al 2019). Educational activities on sustainability must be transformative to encourage self-awareness to aid competence and transformation (Anastasiadis et al 2020;Wersun et al 2019).…”

Mathematics Applied to the Economy and Sustainable Development Goals: A Necessary Relationship of Dependence

“…Innovative practices that provide them with a positive experience could help improve their performance in mathematics and the perception of its usefulness [38]. Therefore, the activities carried out by the teacher in the classroom are very important to motivate students in this subject and to obtain their maximum potential [39][40][41].…”