Developing Students’ Action Competence for a Sustainable Future: A Review of Educational Research

Abstract

The goal of education for sustainable development is to develop future citizens who can make informed decision and take responsible action to solve the problem. The concept of action competence proposed by Jensen and Schnack in 1997, which emerges as a critical thought from traditional environmental education, gradually attracts the attention with the maturing on the idea of sustainability. This research aims to systematically analyse the peer-reviewed studies published between 1997 and 2017 that embraced the concept of action competence as the instructional approach. After coding 170 articles from two quality databases, some patterns emerge from the year of publication in the resulting 34 empirical studies. Findings on the research design, pathway of intervention, instructional setting, and learning outcome increase our understanding of action competence applied in the authentic context. There is a sharp increase on the inter-disciplinary topic of sustainable development. It reflects the influence of the intergovernmental agreement and the resilience of action competence from environmental education to education for sustainable development. Reviewed studies indicate that action-oriented and transformative pedagogy cultivate students to be active participants, empower their capability of deliberating the causes and effects, and construct their visions for finding strategies toward the problems.

Action competencies for sustainability and its implications to environmental education for prospective science teachers: A systematic literature review

“…Furthermore, in another publication, (van Poeck & Vandenabeele, 2012). The second is a study conducted by Chen and Liu (2020). Their study is only focused on developing students' action competence for a sustainable future.…”

“…Action competence is the development of understanding competence and skills that enable a person to take critical action (Carlsson & Simovska, 2012;Jensen & Schnack, 2006;Mogensen & Schnack, 2010;Nielsen et al, 2012;Robertson, 2017). The concept of action competence was mentioned by Jensen and Schnack in 1997, as a form of critical thinking toward traditional environmental education patterns that have been running for decades (Chen & Liu, 2020). Action competence illustrates an ability to critically assess alternative solutions in action to achieve sustainable future targets (Hedefalk et al, 2014;Sass et al, 2020).…”

“…The issues can be raised from the themes or contexts studied by students (Darling-Hammond et al, 2020). Sustainable development is a theme directly tied to action competence (Chen & Liu, 2020;Mogensen & Schnack, 2010) because this field is progressively gaining traction in tandem with the more mature and bustling discussion concerning the concept of sustainability (Chen & Liu, 2020).…”

Can GIS Foster Conscious and Critical Learning in Geography? An Application from Students to a Real Case Included in the National Strategy for Inner Areas: Monti Dauni, Apulia (Italy)

“…Especially in the most exposed and vulnerable areas, it states the need to guarantee everyone the same opportunities, such as to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to take advantage of opportunities and to participate fully and actively in society. It also places great emphasis on competences and skills; in fact, various agendas and studies [14,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23]26,27] have dealt with competences for sustainability and the related conceptualization. However, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) actually requires the lifelong promotion of skills such as creative and critical thinking, communication, collaboration and cooperation, with a particular focus on conflict management, decision making, problem solving and planning, and the appropriate use of ICT in the full exercise of active citizenship in practical life.…”

Enhancing Ecocentric Environmental Attitudes: An Experience of Science Teaching to Inspire Students to Value Trees

“…ESD is about building a better tomorrow for everyone ñ and it should start today (UNESCO, 2019). The ESD is focused on building active citizenship (Chen & Liu, 2020;Cheeseman et al, 2019). It is shared, ìEducation for another possible world will necessarily be education for sustainabilityî (Godotti, 2000, p. 105).…”