International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education

Motivating students and lecturers for education in sustainable development

Karel F. Mulder, Didac Ferrer, Jordi Segalas Coral, Olga Kordas, Eugene Nikiforovich, Kateryna
Pereverza,
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International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 16 Issue: 3, pp.385-401, https://
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Motivating students and Education in

sustainable
lecturers for education in development
sustainable development
Karel F. Mulder 385
Technology Dynamics & Sustainable Development,
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Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

Didac Ferrer
UPC-Barcelona Tech, Barcelona, Spain
Jordi Segalas Coral
Research Institute of Sustainability Science and Technology,
UPC-Barcelona Tech, Barcelona, Spain
Olga Kordas
Industrial Ecology, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden, and
Eugene Nikiforovich and Kateryna Pereverza
Kiev Polytechnic Institute, Kiev, Ukraine

Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims at identifying factors that could contribute to the motivation of students in
sustainable development (SD) education. The underlying idea of the paper is that SD education is not
always as attractive among students and lecturers as many would like it to be.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper briefly reviews literature regarding behavioral change
for long-term benefits. It identifies four motivators that could be effective to make people pursue longer-term
objectives. It identifies if these motivators were present in five cases of successful SD education.
Findings – The four motivators for students that were identified in the literature review (a sense of
autonomy, a challenge of reflection on the future role, connection with others, self-fulfillment, focus on the
individual learning need) could be observed in the cases of successful SD education, although to various
degrees. Individual autonomy in learning was not observed, but group autonomy was present in all cases.
Research limitations/implications – The case studies were all electives. It is unclear how the
motivators could work out in mandatory courses. Moreover, the curriculum as a whole will affect the success
of single courses. Successful courses being “the exception” of the curriculum might be judged differently if
they would be part of the curriculum in which such courses would be the main stream. Further research is
required to check if the motivators are effective in mandatory and not specifically SD-targeted courses. It is
also not clear how various motivators could be applied most effectively in a curriculum.
Practical implications – The paper gives guidance to lecturers and educational managers to design
attractive and effective SD education.
Originality/value – The paper treats SD education from a novel perspective: how to convey a credible
behavioral message, and how to motivate students for education for SD. International Journal of
Sustainability in Higher Education
Keywords Transdisciplinarity, Fear appeals, Learning autonomy, Motivators in education, Vol. 16 No. 3, 2015
pp. 385-401
Self-reflection in education © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1467-6370
Paper type Research paper DOI 10.1108/IJSHE-03-2014-0033
 IJSHE 1. Introduction
16,3 Sustainable development (SD) is a long-term effort. But it should be accomplished by
people who – having this in mind – also have a shorter-term perspective and focus on
actions that are rewarding in the short term. Focusing only on long-term rewards does
not match the capabilities of the human brain (McClure et al., 2004).
Given the general problem that people cannot be motivated by only long-term
386 rewards, the long-term issues that are addressed in education for sustainable
development (ESD) should be presented by such methods that studying these issues is
also rewarding in the shorter term. How could ESD be rewarding for students and for
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lecturers? Institutionalization of ESD is not likely to contribute to the creation of

challenging education. Bureaucratic measures, like auditing tools, might force
university lecturers to include more SD in their education, but are no motivator for them:
In fact, disgust for bureaucratic procedures is one of the few attitudes that academics
share.
A decline of motivation for ESD might destroy everything that has been built in
recent years. Higher education institutes need to motivate their students and lecturers
for efforts that give them no direct personal reward and might even increase their
workload. The only route to long-term success is making ESD short-term attractive.
How to motivate students and lecturers for SD without falling into the trap of
claiming that motivation is all what counts? Learning for SD is important, not just to
stimulate the interest of students to work on SD in later phases of their careers, but
especially to motivate them to study harder to be able to make a better contribution to
SD.

2. Fear for catastrophe

From the beginning of modern environmentalism, education has been regarded as of
key importance. In October 1977, the first international conference on environmental
education was organized by UNESCO in Tbilisi. The concluding declaration did not just
aim at educating environmental specialists. One of its recommendations was:
Environmental education should cater to all ages and socio-professional groups in the
population. It should be addressed to (a) the general non-specialist public of young people and
adults whose daily conduct has a decisive influence on the preservation and improvement of
the environment; (b) to particular social groups whose professional activities affect the quality
of the environment; and (c) to scientists and technicians whose specialized research and work
will lay the foundations of knowledge on which education, training, and efficient management
of the environment should be based (UNESCO, 1977).
In its tone and wording, the Tbilisi declaration aimed at creating understanding of
environmental problems in order “to participate in a responsible and effective way in
anticipating and solving environmental problems” (UNESCO, 1977). The issue was not
addressed how students and educators could be motivated to make these changes.
Implicitly, it was assumed that showing people the magnitude and causes of the
problems seemed to suffice. Like in many of the policy statements afterwards, the
implicit motivator for educational changes was the fear for global catastrophe. Over
the years, it showed that if signs of an imminent catastrophe could be observed, and the
issue was picked up by the media, large public interest was generated (Table I).
Hence, smaller events trigger the fear of global catastrophe and act as a stimulus for
the response that sustainability-minded lecturers seek among students and colleagues,
 i.e. action to behave/design/study more sustainably. It means: Information about the Education in
problematic state of the world leads to action. There are various problems related to this sustainable
statement.
The first problem is that the trigger is very often an occurrence that is limited in time
development
and space. It might therefore lead to a reaction that the cause is not too serious: storms
and heat waves will end, the local crop failure does not lead to famine once food
shipments have reached destination, etc., or in other words: The reaction might be that 387
these occurrences are not really meaningful signs for the threat of a global catastrophe.
Sometimes there are even accusations that catastrophes are deliberately pictured more
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threatening in the media, just to maintain the support for the “good cause” (like in the
case of the number of HIV-infected individuals; Fiala, 2008).
But even if an occurrence is taken as a warning sign, it is not self-evident that it creates
more support for SD. The relationship between “information about a serious problem” and
“action” is far from being linear. More information on a problematic situation could lead to
more action, but certainly not in all cases. SD educators could learn from social-psychology.
In a classic paper on fear arousing communication, it was concluded that:
When fear is strongly aroused but not fully relieved by the reassurances contained in a mass
communication, the audience will become motivated to ignore or minimize the importance of
the threat (Janis and Feshbach, 1953).
Hence, more information showing more severe problems could lead to a “Problem
overkill” (creating disbelief in the message and its source) and/or to “despair” (there is
nothing to be done; “live your life as long as you can”). The first phenomena should
always be avoided, as it counteracts the essence of teaching. The second phenomena has
been quite a common problem for environmentalists, as well as for environmental
education (Hicks, 1998).
A third reaction to receiving information regarding a future threat might be “denial”:
there are options for action, but these options are considered very unattractive. This
phenomenon is explained by the cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1985): If facts
do not comply with desires/wishes, subjects might just deny or ignore the facts. In
practice, one can observe many examples. For instance, despite various warnings,
smokers continue smoking (Cnattingius et al., 1992), and the Chernobyl forbidden-zone
squatters just deny that there is any danger in radioactivity (Gates, 2007). And of course
our societies live in a state of denial in regard to climate change, as the level of action is
completely inadequate, even to prevent very severe impacts (Stern et al., 2006). How to
prevent such denial responses to ESD?
Clearly, motivating students and colleagues by only speaking about horrific
catastrophes is not very effective. Overstating the magnitude of these phenomena is an
academic sin and will, in the long run, not lead to desired action. Already in the 1950s,

Event “Fear” touched in media

Storms, heat waves Climate spiraling out of control, e.g. the USA 2010 Heat Wave (Kurczy, 2010) Table I.
Expensive resources Resource depletion, cf. Friedman (2011) Recent examples of
A new flue Mass epidemics, cf. e.g. New birds flu in February 2014 (Roberts, 2014) events triggering
Local crop failure Mass starvation, cf. e.g. Kenya, 2009 (Anonymous, 2009) attention for
Declining wild life Mass extinction of species, cf. e.g. The missing sparrows (Anonymous, 2008) sustainability issues
 IJSHE psychologists showed that a well-balanced warning for serious threats triggers more
16,3 desired action than presentations that arouse intense fears (Janis and Feshbach, 1953).
Scientific fact and scientific rigor, as well a neutral tone, i.e. the traditional “tone” of
academic teaching, are still required. However, showing options for action is important
for students. Without knowing options for action, denial and despair are more likely
reactions (Cf. Sterman, 2008).
388 But to prevent denial, it is also important to depict attractive options: Options that do
not just contribute to postponing or stopping the long-term catastrophe, but that could
also lead to interesting short-term activities for students; studying new subjects,
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learning new approaches and perspectives and helping to realize how learning
contributes to problem solving in real life.

3. Motivation
In theories of fear as a motivator for protective measures, three aspects are relevant:
(1) the severity of the threat;
(2) the probability of the occurrence of the event; and
(3) the efficacy of a recommended coping response (Rogers, 1983).

Later a fourth factor was added: the ability that the subject is able to administer the
required response.
Several studies were carried out establishing the relative importance of these factors,
especially concerning public health like, e.g., sun protective behavior. (Prentice-Dunn
et al., 2009). Research showed that the mechanisms that are involved when others
(including animals) are threatened are similar to the mechanisms occurring when people
are threatened themselves (Shelton and Rogers, 1981). Compassion for the
underprivileged and the generations to come that might be in some way less privileged
than the average Westerner today might be explained by the same factors.
Compassion for future generations, the generations to come, that might endure
worsening conditions of living is opposed to a deep strain of Western civilization: that
modern society is on a track of “progress”. The cyclic worldview of Antiquity and many
non-Western societies has long been left in the industrialized societies (Nisbet, 1980;
Stahel, 2011). We are “progressing”, but to what destiny? Progress thinking makes a
collapsing society for many people unimaginable, as each threat can be countered by
“scientist and engineers who will work out some solution”. This idea was taken to the
extreme by trans-humanists who aimed at not only improving the human condition, but
even the physical and mental human performance (Kurzweil, 2005).
Nevertheless, a societal collapse is still fascinating, both in academic and in popular
culture (Diamond, 2005). Hence we cannot be too certain what response might be
triggered by the SD challenges that the world faces. There is reason to doubt if main
factors that might motivate for a response to the SD threats will motivate sufficiently:
• Will catastrophe really happen? (severity of threat as well as probability of
occurrence)
• Will the proposed responses work?
• Do I need to contribute? (as there are always “free riders”)
• Will I be able to give up my lifestyle for […]?
 Science and universities have a specific status: They are supposed to be striving for Education in
truth. Hence, one might argue that university education does not need motivators: sustainable
universities teach rationality. That is sufficient motivation on its own. But is it a development
sufficient motivator to keep our students on track for the challenges of the future?
Highly rewarded career paths that are aiming at a quicker return of the academic
investments are tempting. Moreover, universities do not only teach the scientific
understanding of reality, they also teach changing reality, which is a normative issue 389
(Mulder, 2010).
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In Western societies, most choices for another lifestyle involve more consumption.
Poverty might force people back into lifestyles that they want to escape from. But
positive lifestyle choices are also possible without more consumption. For example,
young adults generally prefer to have their own life that gives them more autonomy,
instead of the often wealthier life with their parents (Jones, 1995). People often refrain
from stressed jobs, as they prefer their own health and time for reflection. Hence there
are other motivators than quick returns and fears. A main theory of motivators could be
found in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1943). The idea of a fixed hierarchy of
needs that universally applies has often been criticized. However, for our purpose, it is
sufficient to study if the higher-order needs of Maslow’s scale, i.e. the needs for
self-esteem and self-actualization, can be used to design motivators in education, and
can explain successful SD education projects. A full discussion of the Maslow needs and
their hierarchy goes beyond the scope of this paper. As we aim at showing the potential
of such an approach, we will only use:
• autonomy, i.e. the student can decide the arrangement of his/her activities to a
large degree by himself/herself;
• challenge of reflection, i.e. the student is challenged, and has the time to think for
himself/herself what his/her future role will be and what his/her learning
activities should be for that role;
• connection with others, i.e. students can connect to each other to help and receive
help, discuss and develop alternatives; and
• self-fulfillment, i.e. students are able to shape their learning activities to their own
learning aims.

For education, these requirements are in line with some of the requirements that have
been found for effective SD education. For example, Segalàs et al. (2010) mentioned:
• courses that students can recognize as being related to societal challenges;
• cooperative active learning processes;
• interdisciplinary learning projects, by which various parts of a curriculum can be
integrated; and
• transdisciplinary projects by which students learn to work with external
stakeholders.

In the remaining part of the paper, we explore and discuss the use of these motivators in
education and analyze courses that were highly motivating, to see if these motivating
factors could be identified.
 IJSHE 4. Motivating students and colleagues
16,3 The prevailing pedagogical model is that of a student being an empty box, to be filled
with whatever the lecturer decides to pour into it. Motivators in which the student’s
sense of autonomy is addressed, or where the connection between theory and real-life
practice is shown, are often limited to extracurricular activities like excursions and
study visits. Autonomy in learning was introduced since the end of the 1960s by
390 individualized instructional systems (van der Klauw and Plomp, 1974). As autonomy is
such an important motivator, especially at the age of most university students, it is
remarkable that these attempts failed. However, their failure was mainly due to their
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success: lecturers were detached from their students and were unable to observe/check
their students’ learning process (Plomp and Van Der Meer, 1977). This underlines the
importance of another motivator (in this case for lecturers) “connection to others”: an
uncontrollable autonomy of learning for students was undermining the responsibility of
lecturers for the entire curriculum. Individualized instructional systems, creating more
autonomy for learners, were not rejected for courses that were not part of a curriculum,
as is generally the case for foreign language learning (Holec, 1979).
New pedagogies, like problem-based learning, offer the option to students to link
theories to practice. Project-based learning offers the option to a student to orchestrate
his/her own learning process. These forms of learning might combine autonomy with
connection to others, and eventually also reflection and self-fulfillment. Clearly such
forms of learning are motivating, even to such extents that other parts of a curriculum
can be threatened by the students putting all their efforts into this motivating education.
The reverse might be true for the lecturer: what the student gains in autonomy might
imply less control for the lecturer, and more work to check what the students have been
doing. Extra efforts for teaching will be a serious career risk for the lecturer, as less time
can be spent to research. Similar structural barriers exist for other motivators:
educational programs are pre-arranged pieces of knowledge; time for reflection is
generally absent, as tight arrangements do not allow students to reflect on their learning
process. Moreover, group work is sometimes “over” structured. The gains in social
interaction might be lost by low autonomy and a low self-fulfillment, as the students
have no control of their learning activities.
In the remainder of this paper, it is analyzed if these motivators did actually occur in
SD courses that were highly appreciated by students. We will analyze five SD courses
not by analyzing the student motivation for the SD content of the courses (avoiding
catastrophe, contributing to a better world) but by analyzing how the courses used other
motivators in the learning process. Finally, it will reflect on effective and motivating SD
education that does not (or hardly) require extra staff efforts.
Naturally, we did not select the cases in a random way. The selection was based on
the authors’ knowledge of successful SD courses in their universities. Moreover, this
success had to be lasting to eliminate contingency. Finally, courses for which the student
appreciation was clearly related to the specific performance of a lecturer were
eliminated, as our aim was not to identify excellent (or witty) lecturers.

4.1 UPC-Barcelona Tech: bachelor level – European Project Semester

The European Project Semester (EPS) is a one-semester program (30 ECTS) designed to
train final-year bachelor engineering students to work in international teams. In the
EPS, an international team of students works on a real-life project that has been
 proposed by a company. The EPS trains students by applying project-based learning in Education in
intercultural and multidisciplinary groups. The EPS program emphasizes the sustainable
introduction of competences in sustainability and human technology (Segalàs et al., development
2011).
The main objective of the EPS is to improve the learning outcomes and competences
of engineering students in relation to sustainability, communication and teamwork
skills, the ability to work in intercultural settings and the ability to work in real 391
multidisciplinary projects with students from different degree backgrounds.
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The EPS is divided into seminars (worth 10 ECTS) and a project (worth 20 ECTS).
The seminars include courses in sustainable technologies, business and sustainability
and human technology. The projects are proposed by local companies and research
groups. Since 2008, the number of participants has increased from 9 in 2008 to 30 in 2013.
The 144 students, who have participated in 26 projects, have come from 18 different
European and North American universities and from over 19 different academic
disciplines (Segalas, 2012).
The assessment of the program shows excellent results, as all the students who have
participated in the EPS have successfully passed the final requirements. Moreover
students were questioned about the overall course and the teaching-learning approaches
applied. This was assessed using the Students’ Evaluation of Education Quality
(SEEQ), developed by Herbert Marsh (Marsh, 1982). SEEQ uses a Likert scale [strongly
agree (5)/agree (4)/neutral (3)/disagree (2)/strongly disagree (1)]. It examines eight
characteristics of effective teaching: learning, individual rapport, enthusiasm,
examinations, organization, breadth, group interaction and assignments, through 27
questions. The SEEQ results are very high in all the evaluated aspects (Figure 1).
Comments from students have always been very positive. For example, some
comments of students who took part in EPS (2008) which reflect this:
Developing devices in an international team with different mother languages was really
challenging. To communicate with team members or supervisors the specific terms had to be
used and thus the range of special vocabulary increased significantly. Also, the varying kinds
of mentality in the group and the Spanish way of working have been helpful experiences.
Things do not always have to be exactly on time or work perfectly. For students it is even more
useful if they can learn because of the mistakes which were made. Summed up, the EPS for me
was a great program and will for sure help me in my future life. Student from Oulu University
of Applied Sciences (Finland).

5
4 3.83 6
4.06 4.03
3.57 3.59 3.60 3.54 3.5
53
3
2
1
Figure 1.
Assessment of EPS
through SEEQ
questionnaire
(0 Low – 5 High)
 IJSHE From my point of view, I can only recommend everybody, who wants to taste a bit of the real
working life, to take part in the EPS project, because it will be an unforgettable experience.
16,3 Student from Kiel University of Applied Sciences (Germany).

4.2 UPC-Barcelona Tech: international course on sustainable technology innovation

The International Seminar on Sustainable Technology Development is a five ECTS
392 course offered within the framework of the Master of Sustainability Science and
Technology program at UPC Barcelona Tech. Since 2012, it is also an ERASMUS
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Intensive Program financed by the EU Education and Training program.

The main goals of the course are to connect experts, future researchers and
policy-makers on real topics where long-term technological system renewal is needed to
fulfill sustainability requirements; to increase the understanding of SD in the long term
and the role of technology and technological systems therein; to increase the capability
to apply foresighting, forecasting and backcasting; to contribute to the development of
scientific competences of students; to increase the ability of teachers to teach future
imaging, foresighting, forecasting and backcasting; to become an expert’s meeting
point; and to create networking activities among different groups and institutions
(Segalàs and Tejedor, 2012).
The course introduces the methodology of backcasting in real sustainability
problems. The learning environment is international, transdisciplinary,
intergenerational and intercultural. It includes stakeholders’ dialogues and discussions.
It is organized around current sustainability-relevant topics, which are analyzed in case
studies based in different contexts: going from developed to developing countries and
from local to global cases. Students apply backcasting to the case studies to set up
contextualized sustainability strategies. Students and lecturers from six European
universities and with different backgrounds are participating in the course.
The course is divided into four steps:
(1) Local situation analysis: From March to May, student teams analyze a core topic
in their home country/region.
(2) Case study analysis: In May, students are grouped into international,
multidisciplinary teams and define the current state of the case studies, as well
as the questions and challenges that they pose.
(3) Seminar at UPC: In June, students, lecturers and stakeholders meet in Barcelona,
where the two-week course takes place.
(4) Evaluation of the course: Students analyze their learning experiences in terms of
acquisition of new competences.

So far more than 170 students, 30 lecturers and 50 stakeholders have participated in this
course. The topics analyzed in the course vary each year; the topics elaborated so far
have been: urban solid waste management; food and drinks packaging waste;
overfishing and marine ecosystem degradation; and sustainable mobility, agro-ecology
and community energy systems.
The course is very successful among students of MSc programs related to
sustainability. The number of students and universities participating in the course is
increasing. The course evaluation shows a high satisfaction of the students in relation to
 the content and organizational issues and also to the pedagogical methodologies applied Education in
(Figures 2 and 3). sustainable
4.3 UPC-Barcelona Tech: Living Lab – LOW3n
development
At UPC-Barcelona Tech, the recent experience of the Solar Decathlon contest has been
very valuable[1]. In the first European edition (2010), a group of 20 architecture students
coordinated by a lecturer worked during 16 months to design and build a passive 393
sustainable house (LOW3). The experience was unique for the students who, apart from
learning sustainable architecture, learned teamwork, project management,
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interdisciplinarity, fund-raising […], so a wide range of interpersonal and

entrepreneurial skills (Masseck, 2011).
In the following edition (2012), no teacher wanted to accept the heavy task of
coordinating the project. Instead of abandoning the project, the students took this
responsibility themselves. They conducted successfully all project phases, acquiring
not only all the competences mentioned earlier, but also the full responsibility of their
project and learning activity. Fundamental in those experiences was the level of
autonomy they had been conferred by the school, which triggered their responsibility
and innovative solutions. For example, for the second edition, where funding was really
a problem, students organized a crowd-funding project in a social innovation
platform[2], which would have been unimaginable if the school had provided the
funding. This is today a key skill and experience for social entrepreneurship.
In the Year 2013, the third cohort of students participated in the course. All three
Living Lab courses held since 2011 proved to be highly participative, developing many
generic competences, skills and knowledge of students who had to collaborate and

Figure 2.
Assessment of
pedagogical
methodologies (1 ⫽
absolutely disagree,
5 ⫽ absolutely
agree), Year 2011

Figure 3.
Assessment of the
course (1 ⫽
absolutely disagree,
5 ⫽ absolutely
agree), Year 2011
 IJSHE co-design the individual objectives and working plans for each course. The course and
16,3 learning was assessed using a Likert scale. Figure 4 shows that in all indicators,
students find the course very inspiring and helpful.

4.4 Delft University of Technology: the “Boat Week” course

When Delft University of Technology decided to sustainabilize its education, the main
394 priority was to confront all main-stream engineering students with the challenges of SD.
However, there was a stable category of students who wanted to specialize in SD
engineering. Hence an option was created, open to all students, to specialize in SD within
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the context of their normal engineering curriculum. Students could earn an extra
certificate by this SD track. To obtain the certificate, students had to participate in a
number of optional SD courses, carry out a graduation project that is SD-relevant and
participate in the “Boat Week” course.
This “Boat Week” aims at providing students an insight in strategies how their MSc
thesis work could play a role in developing pathways to SD. The first week of the course
is at a boat. Afterwards, students do two weeks of group work. The boat is a converted
barge, having bedrooms for 30 people and a living area. It sails the inland waterways of
the West part of The Netherlands. The students are from different MSc programs. In
general they do not know each other before. With 25 like-minded participants, with
different backgrounds, there is an atmosphere of intense discussion. The students are
more or less for a whole week immersed in SD discussions.
During this week, various sites are visited such as urban development projects,
industry, ecological sites, waste or energy companies, buildings and infrastructures that
are interesting for SD. When the boat sails, presentations and discussions take place on
board. By having such a varied program, students get a wide overview of the variety of
SD challenges and solutions, and the paradoxes and dilemmas that might be present.
This is important to open up the one-sided perspective that many of the engineering

P
Praccal construcon and evaluaaon experiencee 3.92

Project based leearning approach 3.86

Collaborave and parcipatory learn

ning environmen
nt 4.22

Transdisciplinary teaching and reesearch approach 3.84

Teamwork and com

mmunicaon skills 4.05

Holisttic view and speecific knowledge on sustainabilitty 3.86

Figure 4.
Living Lab LOW3 Trransdisciplinary collaboraon an
nd understanding 3.46
learning assessment
by students
1 2 3 4 5
 students have: SD is not only about energy or climate change, it is not only about Education in
materials and depletion, it is not only about biodiversity and ecological restoration. It is sustainable
all. But if it’s all, how to deal with the dilemmas, and where to start? (Mulder et al., 2011).
In the second week, the students do a backcasting exercise in groups to train them in
development
developing an SD strategy for a specific need in society (Quist et al., 2006). Initially, we
decided to take only long-term challenges (50 years) for this exercise, but this made it
hard to relate the exercises to the practice of industry and public agencies. Nowadays, 395
students also work on medium-term challenges (10-20 years) by which the projects can
be connected with projects of societal partners. Working with partners is extra
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motivating for students.

In the first part of this course, the autonomy of students is rather low: in fact they
cannot leave the boat and have to participate 24 hours for five days. However, a lot of
discussion takes place regarding SD as a challenge for their professional life. In the
second part of the course, the participants are rather autonomous in their group work.
Evaluations show that options for reflection with fellow students, the connection of
education to societal goals and the connection to students from other programs are the
main motivators for students (De Werk and Mulder, 2003).

4.5 Kyiv Polytechnic Institute: Summer School by Student Science Association

The annual Summer School has been organized at Kiev Polytechnic Institute (KPI) by its
Student Science Association since 2006. The aim of the Summer School is to facilitate
internationalization at KPI and to provide students with an opportunity to learn
contemporary subjects in a friendly and motivating atmosphere during two weeks in
summer. Members of the Student Science Association are responsible for all stages of
the School’s preparation, implementation and evaluation, including the choice of the
topics for each year’s unique program. These topics are organized into several separate
streams, consisting of lectures, workshops, discussions, group work and study visits to
companies and research institutions.
SD has been integrated into the Summer School’s program since 2008. The
introduction of the sustainability concept was greatly influenced by a course on SD
conducted at KPI in the framework of the Erasmus-Mundus SDPROMO project during
two weeks in February 2008 (Segalas, 2008). A group of students from the organizing
committee of the Summer School took part in this course and got inspired by discussions
on the new roles of engineers as the change agents toward sustainability and by the
problem-based approach to the course design applied by professors from KTH, TU
Delft, UPC Barcelona-Tech and KPI. The course included a variety of active learning
methods such as role plays, case studies, project work, films followed by debates.
Following the motivating experience, an active student group embedded SD into the
Summer School program through the following steps:
• SD was integrated as a module in 2008 and 2009;
• SD became the theme for a separate stream in 2010;
• SD became a main topic of the Science of Global Challenges stream in 2011; and
• finally, SD became a base line of the Advanced Energy stream in 2012.

The streams and modules connected to SD have always been highly rated by the
Summer School’s participants. Two types of questionnaires have supported this
 IJSHE conclusion: the course evaluation questionnaire, which is filled out by participants at the
16,3 end of each course, and the program evaluation questionnaire, which in turn is filled out
at the end of each Summer School. Besides these surveys targeting the School’s
participants, an on-line questionnaire targeting members of the organizing committee
has been utilized to evaluate different aspects of the Summer School project. A part of
this questionnaire is designed to analyze the motivators for the members of the Student
396 Science Association to become the organizers of the Summer School. As all students
involved in the organizing committee are volunteers, understanding their motivation is
a crucial factor for the continuation of the Summer School. Within this on-line
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questionnaire, the Summer School organizers provided information concerning the

fulfillment of their expectations, assessed their own work and the work of the other team
members, suggested proposals concerning project improvement pointed out main
weaknesses of the current Summer School and shared their plans concerning
participation in the following year project. The survey among the organizers has been
developed and analyzed by students who were core team members of the Summer
School project.
In 2011 and 2012, in total 27 answers have been received from the organizing team
members through the on-line questionnaire (11 answers and 16 answers, respectively).
The results of the questionnaires revealed the most important motives for the students
becoming organizers (Table II).
Understanding these motives gives a possibility to involve new members in the
project team and to keep a core of the project team for a longer period, which is crucial for
team-building and securing the Summer School project.
It is interesting to see that the motives for students to organize the Summer School are
in line with the motivators for SD problem-based learning, namely:
• a sense of autonomy and self-organized work on a real-life project;
• connection with others, teamwork in an intercultural environment and acquiring
communication skills; and
• self-fulfillment and self-evaluation.

The experience of KPI shows how an inspiring course on SD and the motivating
atmosphere of the students’ organization created the possibility to successfully organize
and develop a self-organized piece of education. It continued over a long period. SD was
playing the role of interdisciplinary pillar connecting different topics.

Stated motives Times mentioned

To work in an intercultural environment 21

To practice English language 10
To obtain experience in realizing a real-life project 10
Table II. To practice teamwork 8
The most important To meet lecturers and students from different countries 5
motives for the To achieve new knowledge and experience for further work and study 5
students to become For self-evaluation (personal skills and competences) during implementation
summer school of a real-life project 4
organizers Positive emotions 3
 5. Discussion Education in
In the cases, a number of the motivators can be observed that have been introduced in sustainable
this paper. In fact, the motivators that were identified before were all present in all of the
cases that were analyzed, although to different degrees (Table III).
development

5.1 Autonomy
Autonomy was especially important at the group level. Individual autonomy did not 397
occur in the cases. Autonomy was especially important in the UPC-Solar Decathlon case,
both in organizing the educational activity as well as in executing it. The Kiev summer
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school was also self-organized, but the program was more pre-structured. The UPC
cases 4.1/4.2/4.4 were all pre-structured by lecturers, but these learning activities
contained large parts of self-organized group work.

5.2 Reflection
Reflection on the future professional roles was most clearly present in the two
educational activities that aimed at training the backcasting methodology. This
strategic planning tool often led students to reflect on their own future careers, their
goals of life and what they had to do to be “on track”. This element was less present in
the more problem solving-oriented activities under 4.1 and 4.3.

5.3 Connection
Real-life problems were worked at by students in the cases of 4.1 (projects from SMEs in
Villanova), 4.2 (backcasting on a specific topic) and 4.4 (backcasting problems of public
companies). Programs were adapted to accommodate working at these real-life
problems. As such this was motivating especially because of the connection to real-life
actors. The motivator was that students knew that there was somebody waiting for the
solution that they would elaborate. For this reason, real-life problems have to be real:
simulation of an external actor will probably not work.

5.4 Self fulfillment

In the activities 4.1, 4.3 and 4.5, students had widest opportunities to engage in learning
activities that they liked to pursue themselves both because of the openness of the
projects and the learning opportunities that were created by self-organization.
A final function of these new forms of education was to integrate various curriculum
elements. This happened especially in the cases of 4.5, and in 4.1. The 4.1 case, the
UPC-Barcelona European Project Semester is a bit of a special case here, as it is a full
semester. The project work was intended as an integrator of that semester.

6. Conclusion
Based on this limited study, it is impossible to assess which of the motivators that have
been identified might be most effective. This might also depend on various factors that
we did not take into account. The cases presented here are all rather long-term
successful, although some are older than others. They have all proven themselves as
being more than just a nice experiment. However, their success could also very well be
seen as “the successful exception”, or in other words: Would these courses also be so
successful in a curriculum that really would be built on a different pedagogical
approach? In engineering, there are only few curricula that are built on problem-based
learning (Kolmos et al., 2004). Some curricula only use problem-based learning partially,
 Downloaded by University of Technology Mauritius, Amit Ramroop At 05:28 02 November 2018 (PT)

16,3

398
IJSHE

Table III.

and motivators
Overview of cases
EPS, International course, Living lab, Boat week course, Summer school,
Motivator Barcelona (4.1) Barcelona (4.2) Barcelona (4.3) Delft (4.4) Kiev (4.5)

Autonomy X X XXX X XX
Reflection X XXX X XXX XX
Connection XXX XX XXX XX XX
Self-fulfillment XX X XX X XX

Notes: autonomy, being able to arrange own activities; challenge of reflection, i.e. the student is challenged, and has the time to think on his/her future
professional role; connection with others, i.e. students can connect to each other and to stakeholders, to help and receive help, discuss and develop
alternatives; self-fulfillment, i.e. students are able to realize their own learning aims
 as it is claimed that students need to have acquired a certain level before they are able to Education in
guide their own learning process (Kirschner et al., 2006), i.e. to work autonomous as a sustainable
group. This is in line with our results, as all selected cases were rather advanced courses.
So do we need other motivators for SD courses for undergraduates as we need for
development
graduate courses?
A third issue for further research is the combination of motivators. Clearly we cannot
apply all the motivators to the maximum, to create the most motivating SD course. So 399
how to combine autonomy, reflection, connection and self-fulfillment in a course and in
a curriculum, and what combination might be appropriate for what goal? Autonomy
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might be discerned at two levels: group level and individual level. At the individual
level, no examples were found, but it cannot be excluded that it can be successfully
applied especially for training individual skills.
Are the motivators that were identified in this paper valid for all courses and all types
of students? The motivators might perhaps work for other courses as well. However, SD
courses emphasize specific values that might correlate with the values underlying the
motivators that were identified in this paper. Hence, the participants are not randomly
selected, but specifically SD-motivated. This implies that the motivators do not need to
work out as they did in the cases that were analyzed, if the SD courses are mandatory.
In the past decade, the Engineering Education in Sustainable Development
conferences have made clear that there are large challenges to overcome, specifically to
train transdisciplinary problem solvers (Mulder et al., 2012). More studies are needed to
develop effective education for the professionals who should achieve SD. Real
motivating SD education is far from being a reality. Clearly there are options for much
more motivating SD education. Designing and evaluating motivating pathways to train
students for SD remains a challenging topic for further research.

Notes
1. www.youtube.com/watch?v⫽-2JXsONKlUU, www.youtube.com/watch?v⫽GeHMGAha1eY
2. www.verkami.com/projects/2758-lleva-e-co-a-madrid

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Corresponding author
Karel F. Mulder can be contacted at: k.f.mulder@tudelft.nl

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