| Overall Rating | Gold - expired |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 83.26 |
| Liaison | Megan Litke |
| Submission Date | Feb. 12, 2014 |
| Executive Letter | Download |
American University
ER-13: Sustainability Literacy Assessment
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
2.00 / 2.00 |
Joshua
Kaplan Sustainability Outreach Specialist Office of Sustainability |
Has the institution conducted a sustainability literacy assessment?:
Did the assessment include a baseline evaluation of students and then a follow-up evaluation of the same cohort?:
A copy of the questions included in the sustainability literacy assessment:
A copy of the questions included in the sustainability literacy assessment :
See attached.
A brief description of how the assessment was developed:
By consulting other schools' assessments and considering the projects underway on campus, several questions were developed to gauge knowledge about sustainability topics, to have students rate the importance of those topics, and to get a sense of their attitudes related to sustainability as a whole.
A brief description of how the assessment was administered:
The survey was created with Survey Monkey and e-mailed in November 2013 to the representative group. A second e-mail was sent one week after the initial e-mail to those who did not take the survey the first time. The survey asks respondents to self-report personal attitudes toward sustainability, existing knowledge of sustainability issues, and values concerning the importance of sustainability issues. Attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs are assessed using a 5-point Likert Scale that ranges from Negative (1), to Neutral (3), to Positive (5). Comparison between incoming and outgoing students is possible within a single year or between multiple years to gauge progress.
A brief summary of results from the assessment:
125 respondents took the survey.
Majority of the respondents strongly agreed that their lifestyle reflects their knowledge of sustainability issues, and 63% of seniors indicated their lifestyle has become more sustainable since enrolling at AU (a 17 percentage point increase over the number of freshmen who indicated the same). Majority of respondents would like to learn more about sustainability. Seniors demonstrated greater knowledge of sustainability issues, indicating that their time at American University had a positive effect on their sustainability knowledge. Carbon offsets and waste management were the least known topics while the most well known topic was climate change. On average, issues concerning social justice scored higher than environmental issues, indicating that there is an opportunity to more closely connect these topics in the classroom.
The website URL where information about the literacy assessment is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.