Evaluating an Educational Intervention Designed to Foster Environmental Citizenship among Undergraduate University Students

• Main Authors: Audronė Telešienė, Jelle Boeve-de Pauw, Daphne Goldman, Ralph Hansmann
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-07-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: environmental citizenship; education for environmental citizenship; pedagogical approaches in environmental education; sustainable development; promoting sustainability in higher education; connectedness to nature
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/15/8219

Taking its primary interest in active environmental citizenship, this paper aims at evaluating a case of an educational intervention designed to foster environmental citizenship among undergraduate students at a technological university. The study employs a survey methodology implementing a recently validated environmental citizenship questionnaire. A randomized pre-group –post-group quasi-experimental survey design explores students’ environmental citizenship attributes before and after the intervention course, ‘Sustainable Development’, in comparison to students who participated in a general elective course, ‘Media Philosophy’. The results show that the participation in the intervention course induced positive change in students’ environmental citizenship in comparison to the control group. Additional analysis indicates that environmental citizenship is significantly related to environmental attitudes, nature experiences during childhood and adolescence, and gender. The article provides a timely contribution shedding light on how specific pedagogical approaches in higher education can foster environmental citizenship.