Characterizing undergraduate engineering students' understanding of sustainability

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Characterizing undergraduateengineering students'understanding of sustainabilityA. L. Carew & C. A. MitchellPublished online: 02 Jul 2010.

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Characterizing undergraduate engineering students’ understandingof sustainability

A. L. CAREW † and C. A. MITCHE LL ‡*

Engineering professionals in Australia and internationally are coming underincreased pressure to practise engineering more sustainably. In response to thispressure, the Institution of Engineers, Australia, has updated the procedure foraccreditation of the engineering baccalaureate to ensure inclusion of sustain-ability learning. In order to graduate, Australian engineering students must now‘understand sustainability’. This paper reports on a theoretical synthesis of theliterature on sustainability and understanding, and an empirical investigation intosustainability conceptions held by a group of chemical engineering under-graduate students at the University of Sydney. During the theoretical synthesiswe examined what it might mean for a student to understand sustainability byderiving a suite of sustainability principles and describing the component parts ofan expert-like understanding of sustainability. In the empirical investigation,students’ written responses to the question ‘In your own words, what is sustain-ability?’ were analysed using a modi�ed version of the Structure of ObservedLearning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy. The SOLO analysis revealed broadstructural variation in the way our students understood sustainability.

1. IntroductionInternationally, engineering professionals are coming under increased pressure

to practise engineering more sustainably (WFEO 1999). In Australia, this pressureis apparent in government policy (Productivity Commission 1999), intensifyingcommunity critique of the profession (Green 2001), and a growing sustainabilityemphasis in industry (e.g. Broken Hill Proprietary Limited’s triple bottom-linecorporate reporting, Western Mining Corporation’s commitment to eco-ef�ciencytargets, the Dow Jones sustainability index). This pressure has already changed theoperating environment in which engineers work. The engineer’s operating environ-ment is increasingly governed by formal requirements to consider the broaderimpact of professional decisions (Harding 1998). Examples of these formal require-ments include: environmental impact assessment, environmental managementsystems, risk assessment, hazard analysis, stakeholder consultation, quality assur-ance and full cost accounting.

The Institution of Engineers, Australia (IEAust) acts as an accrediting body forundergraduate engineering degree courses in Australia. IEAust has responded topressure for more sustainable engineering by updating the accreditation process for

EUR. J. ENG. ED., 2002, VOL. 27, NO. 4, 349–361

† Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Sydney, Australia.‡ Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney, P.O. Box 123,

Broadway NSW 2007, Australia.* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: [email protected]

European Journal of Engineering EducationISSN 0343-3797 print/ISSN 1469-5898 online © 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journalsDOI: 10.1080/0304379021016665 7

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undergraduate engineering degrees (IEAust 1999). As of 2000, engineering under-graduates need to attain a range of attributes prior to graduation; two of those attrib-utes refer directly to ‘understanding sustainability’:

‘understanding of the principles of sustainable design and development’

‘understanding . . . the need for sustainable development ’.

Engineering academics now have the responsibility of teaching their students aboutsustainable engineering. In considering how engineering academics might do this,we �rst need to be clear about what we mean by ‘sustainability’, and what it mightmean to ‘understand’. It would also be useful to have a feel for what our studentscurrently know of sustainability. While a great deal has been written about whatengineering students should know about sustainability (Thom 1996, Clift 1998,Crofton 2000, Mitchell 2000), very little has been published detailing what studentsactually know about sustainability.

The aims of this study were:

� to undertake a theoretical synthesis addressing what our engineering studentsmight need to know, think or feel to ‘understand sustainability’;

� to investigate empirically the variation in sustainability conceptions currentlyheld by some of our engineering undergraduate students.

2. Theoretical synthesis: describing sustainability and understanding

2.1. What is sustainability?There are many different expert conceptions of sustainability (Carew and

Mitchell 2001a) and it is beyond the scope of this paper to decide on a de�nitivesustainability conception for engineering education. Instead, we shall detail aconception of sustainability synthesized by the authors from the published work ofsustainability experts from engineering (Thom, 1994 1996, Clift 1998, Crofton 2000,Mitchell 2000) and other backgrounds (Nieto 1999, AtKisson 2001).

Most descriptions of sustainability start with the Brundtland statement:

Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable—to ensure that it meets theneeds of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirown needs. (WCED 1987)

Moving beyond the Brundtland statement, it becomes clear that sustainability isboth a means and an end. As a means, it describes the applied incremental changesthat need to be made to move us closer to implementing a vision of sustainability(Mitchell 2000). As an end it is an holistic vision, which calls for fundamental restruc-turing of the social, economic, political and cultural frameworks upon which oursociety is built (Nieto 1999).

Those authors who describe sustainability as an holistic vision of restructuringjustify the need for change largely on the relatively recent shift in the scale of poten-tial human in�uence. They argue that with the technological revolution of the pasthalf century (Clift 1998) and with population proliferation (Thom 1994), humanshave attained the unprecedented capacity to modify the natural environment on aglobal scale, and with this capacity comes the need for a new type of responsibility.

350 A. L. Carew and C. A. Mitchell

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Thus it comes about that technology . . . installs man in a role which only religion has some-times assigned to him: that of steward or guardian of creation. (Jonas 1982)

What follows from this justi�cation is a set of principles of sustainability (table 1)which is fairly consistent across authors, although none of the authors include all ofthe listed features in their conceptions of sustainability.

The principles of sustainability in table 1 represent sustainability as an end.Sustainability as a means quite simply involves appropriately applying this set ofprinciples to decision-making processes. In other words, the principles act as aframework upon which action for sustainability can be constructed. While we founda reasonable degree of commonality amongst authors in deriving the theoreticaldescription of sustainability in table 1, there is often considerable disagreementabout how to apply a set of sustainability principles like those described (Thom 1996,Mitchell 2000). This suggests that sustainability may be theoretically agreed butbecomes challenging and problematic at the stage of implementation.

This synthesized vision of sustainability is not a de�nitive conception for engi-neering education. It does, however, give some indication of the breadth and depthof content and process that engineering academics will need to contend with ininfusing the engineering curriculum with sustainability learning. Furthermore, thisis the sustainability conception that formed the foundation for construction of ourapproach in the study under discussion. Having brie�y examined sustainability, weshall now turn our attention to the concept ‘understand’.

Understanding of sustainability 351

1. Recognition and respect for the limits of nature’s capacity for regeneration, and limits tosociety (e.g. beyond which social harmony is threatened) and the economy (e.g. capacityof economic systems to support and guide transactions emanating from human activity)(Thom 1994, Clift 1998, Crofton 2000)

2. Recognition of the interdependence and intradependence of ecosystem, socio-system andeconomy (Thom 1996, Clift 1998, Crofton 2000, AtKisson 2001). The more extreme viewexplicitly rejects the notion of nature existing to provide human needs or wants(anthropocentrism), and promotes a view of interconnected and interdependent relationsbetween human and non-human entities (Nieto 1999)

3. Intergenerational equity, in other words the right of future generations to inherit ahealthy and ecologically balanced environment from present generations (Clift 1998,Nieto 1999)

4. Intragenerational equity, for example redistribution of wealth, power and opportunitywith a view to reducing current interpersonal and international disparity (Nieto 1999,Crofton 2000, AtKisson 2001)

5. Respect for social and cultural freedom (Nieto 1999, Crofton 2000), with concomitantacceptance of the responsibilities inherent in social and cultural freedom (Thom 1994)

6. Meaningful involvement of stakeholders in decision-making processes, including thepublic and private sectors, international and local representatives, and non-human agents(Clift 1998, Crofton 2000). The more extreme position is a call for equal distribution ofpower amongst all stakeholders in decision-making (Nieto 1999)

7. Equal representation for economic, environmental and social priorities in decision-making (Thom 1996, Clift 1998)

8. Recognition of the unique contextual factors in each decision-making situation (Clift 1998)9. Taking responsibility for the impacts resulting from one’s decisions (Thom 1994, Clift 1998)

Table 1. Principles of sustainability.

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2.2. What does it mean to understand?At this point we shall consider what might be meant by ‘understand’ in the idea

that undergraduates attain an understanding of sustainability. If we agree with thecontention that tertiary education’s main objective is to produce graduates ‘who arebeginning to think in a manner similar to an expert in their area’ (Schön 1987,Boulton-Lewis 1998: 202), then attaining understanding would mean that ourengineering student should make reasonable progress towards thinking aboutsustainability in the way that engineering sustainability experts do. Research intowhat it is that distinguishes expert thinking from the thinking of novices (reviewedby Bransford et al. 1999) offers some broad insights into what our objective ordestination might be in assisting undergraduate engineering students toward anexpert-like understanding of sustainability. In table 2 we list the two ways ofknowing requisite to the ability to think in an expert-like way. They are knowledgeof content (what is known about the discipline) and structure of content knowledge(how content knowledge is thought about and applied), and we describe thedifferent elements of these ways of knowing (declarative, theoretical, proceduraland conditional knowledge and critical thinking). It is apparent in table 2 that thereis a hierarchy or progression implicit to the development of expertise: the appli-cation of structural elements is contingent on the expert having a body of contentknowledge.

2.3. What does it mean to understand sustainability?Having explored the component parts of sustainability for engineers, and having

decided that to ‘understand’ is to progress toward more expert-like thinking, we arenow in a position to speculate on the nexus between understanding and sustain-ability for engineering students. We propose that statement 1 describes what wouldbe required for an expert-like understanding of sustainability. This statementextends the generic description of expertise by including an ethical componentwhich is very much in evidence in the sustainable engineering literature (Carew andMitchell 2001a, Perdan 2001).

Statement 1. Expert understanding of sustainability. To have factual and theoreticalknowledge of sustainability, the ability to apply that knowledge appropriately tocontextualized decision-making, and be adept at judging the ethics and sustainabil-ity of one’s decisions and decision outcomes.


Elements of content knowledge Elements of structural knowledge

� Factual knowledge relevant to the � Knowing how to manipulate and apply� discipline (declarative knowledge) � declarative and theoretical knowledge for

� problem-solving (procedural knowledge)

� Abstract forms of declarative knowledge � Knowing when it is appropriate to use� such as principles and theories � procedures or content (conditional� (theoretical knowledge) � knowledge)

� Judging the value or quality of decision� outcomes (critical thinking)

Table 2. The elements of expert thinking (Boulton-Lewis 1998, Bransford et al. 1999).

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In table 3, we provide a worked example of how some of the principles describedin table 1, elements of expert thinking as described in table 2 and fragments of state-ment 1 can be related to describe different types of sustainability-related knowledgea student could master in developing a more expert-like understanding of sustain-ability.

While the reality of an individual’s development of expertise is probably morecomplex than our above depiction, as a basic outline table 3 implies that there is alearning hierarchy associated with development of expert understanding of sustain-ability. The content elements focus on the quantitative acquisition of knowledge,whereas the structural elements focus on the appropriate application of contentknowledge in sustainable decision-making. In other words, a qualitative restructur-ing of sustainability content knowledge to tailor it to a given problem or decision-making situation. Clearly the acquisition of content knowledge must precede itsapplication, and the acquisition of a vast amount of sustainability content knowledgeis not suf�cient for indicative of sustainability expertise. This suggests that structuralcomplexity could be viewed as an indicator of sustainability expertise.

Interestingly, the sustainability principles we synthesized from the literature(table 1) do not explicitly address requisite content knowledge. It would appear thatthe authors we reviewed assumed the acquisition of sustainability content know-ledge as a pre-condition of, or synchronous with mastery of, the more structure-focused sustainability principles (table 1).

Having theoretically synthesized what an expert-like understanding of sustain-ability might look like, we now focus on our students and their progress towards thisexpert-like understanding of sustainability. The next part of the paper describes an


Expert ways Elements of Expert sustainability Example of sustainability-of knowing expertise knowledge relevant learning outcome

(table 2) (statement 1) (some from table 1)

Content Declarative ‘To have factual and Use computer program forknowledge knowledge theoretical knowledge life cycle analysis

of sustainability . . .’ calculations (e.g. Sima-Pro®)

Theoretical Understand the principles ofknowledge life cycle thinking

Structure of Procedural ‘. . . to appropriately Principle 2: Recognize theknowledge knowledge apply sustainability interdependence and

knowledge to intradependence ofcontextualized ecosystem, socio-system anddecision-making . . .’ economy (table 1)

Conditional Principle 8: Recognize theknowledge unique contextual factors in

each decision-makingsituation (table 1)

Critical ‘. . . judging the ethics Principle 9: Takethinking and sustainability of responsibility for the

one’s decisions and impacts resulting fromdecision outcomes’ decisions (table 1)

Table 3. Examples of the elements which may contribute to development of an expert-likeunderstanding of sustainability.

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empirical investigation into the structural complexity and content of our engineer-ing students’ conceptions of sustainability.

3. Empirical investigation: student conceptions of sustainability

3.1. The SOLO taxonomyIn considering how our students may develop their understanding of sustain-

ability, we needed to examine the notion of conceptual development—the processby which students build their understanding of disciplinary concepts, topics orsubject matter. Stage theory holds that conceptual development takes place in alinear fashion by way of a progression through fairly predictable intermediate stagesof understanding. These notions of linearity and predictability are contestable iftaken as absolute because they imply that all students take a single de�nitive pathfrom novice to expert. While there may be logical hierarchy or hierarchies in theway that students develop their understanding of sustainability, it is unlikely that allwould follow a single path of conceptual development. We contend that logical hier-archies and stage theory have considerable utility if viewed less de�nitively andmore as imparting insights into the variation in structure and content of disciplinaryknowledge which may exist within a group of students. Understanding this variationoffers a basis upon which academics could:

� decide on the types of conception/s which represent desired learning outcomesfor the subject matter at hand (e.g. sustainable engineering);

� construct schema for assessing different kinds of understanding;� identify and address key differences between desirable and less desirable

conceptions, through targeted teaching and learning activities.

In other words, judiciously interpreted results from research founded on stagetheory may have substantial utility for the formulation and assessment of tertiary-level teaching and learning (Boulton-Lewis 1998).

In 1982, Biggs and Collis (1982) proposed a schema of conceptual developmentbased on Jean Piaget’s work and on empirical evidence generated through phenom-enographic investigation. The schema was called the Structure of ObservedLearning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy and offered a �exible, content-independentframework upon which to build interpretive approaches for mapping variation instudent conceptions (Boulton-Lewis 1998). It depicted conceptual development asa series of �ve successive stages. The early stages were characterized by attainmentof relevant content knowledge, and in the later stages students demonstrated adegree of structural complexity in their understanding. This analytical frameworkparallels our earlier discussion of the development of expertise. The �ve stages ofthe SOLO taxonomy are (Biggs and Collis 1982, Biggs 1991):

� Pre-structural: student demonstrates no understanding of the desired learning.� Uni-structural: student demonstrates understanding of only one item relevant

to the desired learning.� Multi-structural: student demonstrates understanding of more than one

relevant item, but items are seen as independent or unrelated to each other.� Relational: items are described as part of an overall structure and interrelated

(not necessarily a greater number of items nominated than in multi-structural).� Extended abstract: items are described as part of an overall structure, and


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elements of the structure are seen to be applicable in other situations (i.e.transferable or generalizable).

Educational researchers have since applied the SOLO taxonomy in studies ofstudent conceptual development in a broad range of disciplinary areas. Theseinclude: environmental decision-making (Maier and McLaughlan 2001); diffusionand osmosis (Panizzon and Pegg 1997); photosynthesis (Hazel et al. 1996); learning(Biggs and Collis 1982, Boulton-Lewis and Dart 1994); and evaporation (Levins1992). In all of these studies, the researchers viewed the concept at hand throughthe lens of the SOLO taxonomy and derived descriptions of the structure andcontent of response which would demonstrate student responses typical of thevarious SOLO stages. They then asked students to describe the concept and classi-�ed student responses. Within each study the student participants were at a similarpoint in their formal education (e.g. �rst-year university) and yet as a groupdisplayed considerable variation in structure and content knowledge for the givenconcept. It has also been demonstrated that individual students’ conceptions maychange from characteristic early SOLO stage to later stage following tuition. Dart(1998) used the SOLO taxonomy to assess students’ learning about teaching in apre-test, intervention, post-test experimental design. In a group of 22 students, eightwere judged to have multi-structural conceptions prior to tuition and relationalconceptions after tuition. This represented a signi�cant change in the structuralcomplexity of understanding within the group (p = 0.008). Similar results have beengenerated by other researchers (Tang and Biggs 1995, Hazel et al. 1996).

The difference between a multi-structural understanding and a relational under-standing, as described by the SOLO taxonomy, is signi�cant in terms of conceptualdevelopment. The distinction between these two stages is that a multi-structuralconception can be developed through learning in a quantitative way (this parallelsthe acquisition of content knowledge we discussed earlier), whereas the relationalstage rests on the student having also learned in a qualitative way (with a focus onstructuring content knowledge, as discussed earlier) (reviewed by Prosser andTrigwell 1999).

The preceding discussion presents the SOLO taxonomy and shows how it hasbeen applied as a �exible, content-independent framework upon which to constructinterpretive approaches for mapping variation in tertiary students’ conceptions of arange of different concepts. We regard the framework as particularly well suited toconsideration of conceptual development toward an expert-like understanding ofsustainability as it focuses on generic structural aspects of knowing as indicative ofgrowing expertise.

3.2. Survey, participants and analytical processA survey was developed as part of a wider study to examine the meaning, under-

standing, interest and relevance of sustainability and some aspects of sustainabilityto engineering undergraduate students. The survey included an open-endedquestion which was intended to capture students’ conceptions of sustainability intheir own words. Students were asked to respond in writing to ‘In your own words,what is sustainability?’ The survey was administered to 52 chemical engineeringundergraduate students enrolled at the University of Sydney, Australia. All of thestudents who participated were in the third year of a 4-year programme and hadcompleted one compulsory unit of study (equivalent to about 7 h per week over a


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14-week semester) which included sustainability. They had also been exposed to theconcept of sustainability through both oblique and direct references in other unitsof study within the degree programme.

Each student’s response to the question ‘In your own words, what is sustain-ability?’ was analysed using a protocol developed by the researchers based on theSOLO taxonomy (Biggs and Collis 1982, Biggs 1991), the conception of sustain-ability described in table 1 and the description of sustainability expertise in state-ment 1. Table 4 describes the sustainability-speci�c SOLO stages which wedeveloped and used to analyse student responses.

First, the two researchers used the description of stages in table 4 to categorizeindependently 10 randomly selected student responses. Next, the researchersdiscussed points of difference in their interpretation of the stages described in table4 and resulting differences in categorization of student responses. Once these pointsof difference were resolved, the researchers independently categorized another 10randomly selected responses, and once again resolved points of difference. Theresearchers then independently categorized all 52 open-ended question responsesand achieved 78% inter-judge agreement. The 11 contested responses werereviewed and allocated a category. Following categorization, the researchersexamined the content of responses in each SOLO stage, that is, what the studentshad included in their descriptions of sustainability. Distinctly different types ofcontent were identi�ed within stages and examples were selected for presentationin the results section.

As is common in qualitative research, the process for development and appli-cation of the protocol was iterative and interpretive, and therefore rigorous butunlikely to be replicable. In other words, the method for developing an analyticalapproach and the application of that approach was justi�able, consistent and trans-parent (Kvale 1996), but the interpretive nature of this type of analysis means it ispossible that other researchers would generate valid alternative analytical frame-works and interpretations of the data. For this reason, the research outcomes cannotbe described as replicable.


SOLO stage Features of sustainability statement typical of each stage

Pre-structural Either did not know what sustainability was or provided abroad, non-speci�c response

Uni-structural Provided one de�nitive example of something concrete or abstractwith relevance to sustainability

Multi-structural Provided two or more qualitatively different examples of concreteand/or abstract things relevant to sustainability

Relational Constructed a cohesive, internally consistent statement aboutsustainability by relating two or more concrete and/or abstractthings relevant to sustainability

Extended abstract Constructed a cohesive, internally consistent statement aboutsustainability by relating two or more concrete and/or abstractthings relevant to sustainability, and provided evidence of criticalthinking, ethical judgement, consideration of context orcreative/original thinking relevant to sustainability

Table 4. Stages for SOLO analysis of student response to the question‘In your own words, what is sustainability?’

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3.3. Outcome of analysis The results of our analysis of student responses to the open-ended question

demonstrate that a range of structurally different sustainability conceptions existedin a single year group of chemical engineering undergraduate students. The sustain-ability conceptions provided by students were categorized according to the �vestages of the SOLO taxonomy: pre-structural, uni-structural, multi-structural, rela-tional and extended abstract. In table 5 we list how many student responses wereallocated to each SOLO stage and present examples of student responses typical ofeach stage.

Having categorized each student response on the basis of its structural complex-ity, we examined the content students had referred to in each of the stages and foundsome commonality between student responses in each group. The pre-structuralresponses were generally broad sweeping, non-speci�c statements about takingaction or protecting the environment (e.g. table 5: student 65). The �ve students inthis stage had apparently gained only the vaguest notion of what sustainability mightbe about. In contrast the uni-structural responses tended to be de�nite statementsof one concept. All student responses at this stage described one of three concepts:the Brundtland statement (e.g. student 22); the need for resource ef�ciency orenvironmental protection (e.g. student 64); or the need to maintain or improvehuman quality of life or standard of living (e.g. student 29). While these concepts arerelated, each demonstrated a particular student perspective on what sustainability


SOLO stage (n) Example student response

Pre-structural (5) Student 65: ‘Before the situation is getting worse we should �nd a better solution to improve it’

Uni-structural (29) Student 22: ‘Using the currently available resources to meet ourown need without jeopardizing the needs of future generations’

Student 64: ‘. . . the ability to expose waste, etc. to theenvironment at such a rate that the environment can handle it . . .’

Student 29: ‘Sustainability is ensuring that the same standards ofliving will continue and be improved long into the future’

Multi-structural (9) Student 60: ‘Having a process that does not destruct theenvironment or compromise our resources for the future’

Relational (7) Student 50: ‘It is the study of trying to �nd ways to preserve theenvironment and our natural resources . . . ways in whichimprovements to processes can be made or alternativeprocess/materials to be used for a better future for futuregenerations’

Extended abstract (2) Student 21: ‘Sustainability is about managing resources for futuregenerations to use. Its about �nding a balance between theamount of resources we consume and the amount of time we allowthe earth to replenish the resources. It also involves changingcurrent social, economic and political structures so that everythingis more connected’

Table 5. Student conceptions of sustainability categorized using the SOLO taxonomy.

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was. This stage accounted for over half of the student responses (56%). Ninestudents provided multi-structural responses. In terms of content, the responseswere additive versions of the uni-structural responses, with students typically listingtwo or more of the uni-structural concepts (e.g. student 60). It was only at the rela-tional stage that student responses combined concepts to create cohesive statementsor arguments about sustainability. The seven relational responses proved to be veryuniform in terms of content. Each response in this study prescribed action (e.g.pollution prevention, process modi�cation, social responsibility) to achieve Brundt-land outcomes (e.g. student 50). The two extended abstract student responses werestructurally as sophisticated as the relational responses but also provided evidenceof some criticality, ethics, contextuality and/or creative thinking (e.g. student 21).

Our empirical investigation revealed that there was substantial variation in theway that our engineering undergraduate students described sustainability. Thesedescriptions ranged from pre-structural in which students had only the vaguestnotions of what sustainability might be, to extended abstract conceptions which werestructurally sophisticated and included evidence of critical and/or creative thinkingabout sustainability. Consistent with our earlier discussion on quantitative (contentbased) and qualitative (structure based) ways of knowing, the student conceptionsjudged to be structurally sophisticated did not differ markedly from the structurallyunsophisticated conceptions in terms of declarative and theoretical content.

In the next section we consider the relationship between our theoretical synthe-sis and these empirical �ndings, and some of the implications that our work mayhave for understanding how undergraduate engineering students might developexpert-like conceptions of sustainability.

4. Discussion: relating the theoretical synthesis and empirical �ndingsThere is clearly a difference between IEAust’s (1999) requirement for ‘under-

standing of the principles of sustainable design and development’ and ‘understand-ing . . . the need for sustainable development’, and the ideas we presented in table3. While IEAust’s mandate represents a laudable step in reorienting engineeringeducation toward sustainability, it gives little direction on what ‘understandingsustainability’ might mean. Table 3 presents our view of some of the breadth, depthand types of learning which may be required to induct engineering students into thepractice of sustainable engineering. It is unreasonable to expect all students to reachthe expert-like understanding we outlined in statement 1, especially given sustain-ability’s complexity (Carew and Mitchell 2001a) and documented variation instudents’ inclination to tackle learning about different aspects of sustainability(Carew and Mitchell 2001b). This variation manifested in students rating differentaspects of sustainability as more or less interesting or career relevant, depending ontheir prior conceptions of sustainability (judged using the SOLO taxonomy). Vari-ation in student inclination to learn about a given topic or subject has implicationsfor success of student learning as a low inclination to learn has been associated withimpoverished learning outcomes (Prosser and Trigwell 1999). The precedingdiscussion suggests that academics may need to construct sustainability teaching andlearning which allows students to focus initially on preferred areas of sustainabilitylearning prior to, or as a means of, exploring sustainability’s breadth and depth.

The fact that 65% of our third-year students held pre- or uni-structural concep-tions (table 5) is cause for concern, especially as these students had completed a unit


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of study focused on sustainability. The conceptions we judged to be pre- and uni-structural did not even come close to the ideal of an expert-like understandingof sustainability. The seven relational and two extended abstract conceptions,however, demonstrated the kind of structural complexity we believe representsgreater capacity for expert-like sustainability thinking. Regrettably, only 17% of ourstudents provided such responses. This �nding raises the question, ‘How close toexpert-like understanding do individual undergraduate engineering students needto be to have satis�ed IEAust’s requirement for understanding sustainability?’

When we considered our student group as a whole, the empirical �ndings indi-cated the group had acquired much of the sustainability content implicit in the prin-ciples of sustainability we synthesized from the literature (table 1). The students’conceptions contained a heavy emphasis on the immediate and the applied, and thelanguage our students used to express their content knowledge probably re�ected alack of worldly experience, however, essential aspects of many of the sustainabilityprinciples appeared in the students’ conceptions. For example, ‘a balance betweenthe amount of resources we consume and the amount of time we allow the earth toreplenish’ (Principle 1: recognition and respect for limits); ‘. . . [not] jeopardising theneeds of future generations’ (Principle 3: intergenerational equity); and ‘having aprocess that does not destruct the environment’ (Principle 9: taking responsibilityfor decision impacts). This �nding suggests that rather than focusing unduly onsustainability information transfer, the emphasis of our sustainability teaching andlearning could be to facilitate the transfer of content knowledge between peers, toassist students in developing the structure and application of their existing sustain-ability knowledge, and to assist them in incorporating criticality, ethics, contextual-ity and creativity into their sustainability thinking.

The existence of conceptual variation within a single year group offers a signi�-cant challenge to engineering academics in terms of the need to construct curriculawhich will allow pre-structural and uni-structural students to build their basic sustain-ability competence, whilst giving the relational and extended abstract students someincentive to explore the concept further. Understanding the nature of variation in ourstudent’s conceptions of sustainability has given us some useful insights into how weas engineering educators might tackle some of the barriers to undergraduate engi-neers developing expert-like ways of understanding sustainability.

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About the authorsAnna L. Carew, BSc (Hons) University of New South Wales, is a doctoral candidate in theDepartment of Chemical Engineering at the University of Sydney. She trained as a micro-biologist and worked in water microbiology, wastewater engineering, public relations consult-ing, industrial training and sustainability consulting prior to commencing postgraduatestudies. Her doctoral research focuses on the nexus between sustainability theory, engineer-ing philosophy and teaching and learning theory, and how this nexus might inform furtherintegration of sustainability into undergraduate engineering education.

Cynthia A Mitchell, BE (Hons) University of Queensland, PhD (Biotechnology) Universityof New South Wales, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF)at the University of Technology, Sydney. ISF is a research consulting organization whoseclients and collaborators span a wide range of government and business entities. Cynthia’swork at the Institute is focused on sustainability in practice, learning and water cycle manage-ment. Prior to joining ISF in August 2001, Cynthia lectured in engineering for 8 years. Shewas President of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education for 1999–2001.


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Documents

Characterizing undergraduate engineering students' understanding of sustainability