The incoherence of sustainability literacy assessed with the Sulitest

Spanish University Students’ Awareness and Perception of Sustainable Development Goals and Sustainability Literacy

“…This test has been used by universities, companies, institutions, NGOs, citizens, etc., to assess and improve individuals' sustainability knowledge and awareness [28,68]. The test itself consists of a series of international core questions taken from a test bank and a series of questions adapted to the specific testing location [69]. According to Kuelh et al [69], the four themes of core questions are (1) sustainable humanity and ecosystems on planet Earth; (2) global and local human-constructed systems to cover people's needs; (3) transition toward sustainability; (4) we each have roles to play to create and maintain individual and systemic changes.…”

“…The test itself consists of a series of international core questions taken from a test bank and a series of questions adapted to the specific testing location [69]. According to Kuelh et al [69], the four themes of core questions are (1) sustainable humanity and ecosystems on planet Earth; (2) global and local human-constructed systems to cover people's needs; (3) transition toward sustainability; (4) we each have roles to play to create and maintain individual and systemic changes. As part of Project EDINSOST [70,71], a student questionnaire was designed with 18 questions about the four sustainability competencies defined in 2011 by the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE):…”

“…The Sulitest online questionnaire obtains an average score of 59.9% with more than 200,000 people that have done this test until 2021 [149]. However, some concerns have been posed about the questionnaire's internal structure [69]. The EDINSOST Project seeks to assess students' sustainability competencies [70,71].…”

Scientists’ warnings and the need to reimagine, recreate, and restore environmental education

“…On the one hand, whole-institution approaches and extra-curricular activities are typically not mentioned in such texts, even if they are better suited to the aims of ESE; while on the other, non-schoolbased activities might also support the goals of the field and often without the limitations of current mantras and regimes of education policy or survey tools. Focusing on other areas of lifelong and everyday-life learning, such as community engagement activities and sites, nature-based tourism settings, and beyond-school networks, among others, may offer rich opportunities in this space (Ferreira and Davis 2012;Gould et al 2019;Kuehl et al 2021;Wojcik et al 2021;cf. UNESCO 2021b).…”

Guest editorial

“…There are no widely accepted scoring systems or checklists for measuring the effectiveness of courses or programs in advancing sustainability literacy. Despite the emergence of such tools as Sulitest to measure student progress (Décamps et al, 2017), critics question the efficacy of such approaches (Kuehl et al, 2021). Recently, in their critique of Sulitest, Kuehl et al (2021) identified the more fundamental challenge for sustainability literacy as one of "coherence," where "as others have suggested with the concept of sustainability itself, sustainability literacy may not exist as a coherent domain of knowledge" (Kuehl et al, 2021, p. 5).Despite such lack of coherence and the need to better enhance sustainability literacy, various groups within SHE are currently focused on better articulating competencies and learning outcomes and not building sustainability literacy.…”