Lozano, R and Young, W (2012) Assessing sustainability in university curricula: Exploring the influence of student numbers and course credits. Journal of Cleaner Production, 49. 134 - 141. ISSN 0959-6526
Abstract
As more universities become interested in, and engaged with, sustainability, there has been a growing need to assess how their curricula addresses sustainable development and its myriad issues. Different tools and assessment exercises have looked at course descriptors; however, the influence of the number of students enrolled on courses, or the relative weight in credits of the courses in respect of the degrees, has not been explored. The paper compares, with the help of t-tests, three hypotheses developed to investigate the effect of these two influences. The analysis was done using the results from an updated version of the Sustainability Tool for Assessing Sustainability in UNiversities Holistically (STAUNCH®) for the Bachelor and Master programmes from the Faculty of Business and the Faculty of Environment of the University of Leeds. The analysis shows that the results are not statistically dissimilar. Nonetheless, the curricula assessment (including the number of students enrolled and the number of credits) can help to better understand where the university’s courses and programmes are, and how they could be changed to become more sustainability oriented, and, ultimately, to have the greatest impact to help make societies more sustainable.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Keywords: | curricula assessment; sustainability in universities; t-test; number of credits; number of students enrolled; STAUNCH® tool |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 20 Jan 2014 12:46 |
Last Modified: | 20 Jan 2014 12:46 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.07.032 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.07.032 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:77337 |