Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 65.04
Liaison Richard Manton
Submission Date July 30, 2021

STARS v2.2

Ollscoil na Gaillimhe - University of Galway
AC-6: Sustainability Literacy Assessment

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 4.00 Gesche Kindermann
Lecturer - Microbiology
CUSP
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution conduct an assessment of the sustainability literacy of its students?:
Yes

Which of the following best describes the literacy assessment? The assessment is administered to::
A subset of students or a sample that may not be representative of the predominant student body

Which of the following best describes the structure of the assessment? The assessment is administered as a::
Pre- and post-assessment to the same cohort or to representative samples in both a pre- and post-test

A copy of the questions included in the sustainability literacy assessment(s):
A list or sample of the questions included in the sustainability literacy assessment or the website URL where the assessment tool may be found:
NUI Galway is utilizing the Sulitest for a literacy assessment, sample questions shown below:

“Earth Overshoot Day” is the calculated calendar date on which the current world population has consumed more resources than Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources. From that day on, humanity is thus using up resources of future generations. How has the “Earth Overshoot Day” date moved in the last 50 years?

In 2012, how many people around the world were victims of forced labor?

What is the meaning of the principle of accountability in a sustainability context?

Water is one of the fundamental supporters of life and a basic commodity for humankind. The water footprint measures the amount of water used to produce each of the goods and services we use. What is the global average water footprint for the production of a smartphone?

A brief description of how the literacy assessment was developed and/or when it was adopted:
The Sulitest was used for this sustainability literacy assessment. However, so far this test has been completed with three cohorts of undergrads (BSc Environmental Science, BSc Applied Social Sciences, Environmental problems & solutions module) in 2020 and they will repeat it again after their final year. So NUI Galway are only in the pre phase of the pre and post assessment method.

A brief description of how a representative sample was reached (if applicable) and how the assessment(s) were administered :
Students in the BSc Environmental Science and BSc Applied Social Sciences were required to complete the Sulitest as part of their class participation grade. For the students in the Environmental problems and solutions module, the sulitest was optional. The attached excel file shows these three groups containing the following numbers of participants:

BSc Environmental Science: 24 (mandatory for grade)
BSc Applied Social Sciences: 31 (mandatory for grade)
Environmental problems and solutions: 6 (optional)

A brief summary of results from the literacy assessment(s):
Score % Module/Theme
72 62 CORE International
24 64 Knowledge - Sustainable humanity and ecosystems
18 60 Knowledge - Global and local human-constructed systems
20 60 Knowledge - Transition towards sustainability
10 65 Knowledge - Role to play, individual & systemic change

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the sustainability literacy assessment is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The Sulitest made available for first year NUI Galway students for the first round in the 2020/21 academic year. This was the pre-assessment phase. A post-assessment won't be available until the 2024/25 academic year, when these students are in final year. There are plans to continue assessing students every year from now on.

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.