University of Texas at Austin
EN-6: Assessing Sustainability Culture
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
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0.50 / 1.00 |
Rocky
Baier Data Analyst and Reporting Coordinator Office of Sustainability |
Does the institution conduct an assessment of sustainability culture?:
Which of the following best describes the cultural assessment? The assessment is administered to::
Which of the following best describes the structure of the cultural assessment? The assessment is administered::
A brief description of how and when the cultural assessment(s) were developed and/or adopted:
The Office of Sustainability partnered with Institutional Reporting, Research, & Information Systems (IRRIS) to administer the Student Attitudes Scale (SAS) as published by Dr. Adam Zwickle at Michigan State University in the Handbook of Sustainability and Social Science Research (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-67122-2_25). This assessment was chosen because there is published documentation of its efficacy at measuring sustainability attitudes across ecological, economic, and social domains using a small number of questions. The cultural assessment questions and the sustainability knowledge questions were combined into a single survey along with additional campus-specific questions.
A copy or sample of the questions related to sustainability culture:
A sample of the questions related to sustainability culture or the website URL where the assessment tool is available:
A brief description of how representative samples were reached (if applicable) and how the cultural assessment is administered:
The Office of Sustainability partnered with Institutional Reporting, Research, & Information Systems (IRRIS) to conduct the Sustainability survey. Through a collaborative effort, the survey content was refined, ensuring clear and focused questions that captured all the relevant information. The survey was meticulously tested to ensure a seamless participant experience with its flow and functionality. Once finalized, IRRIS created a random sample of the target student population and administered the survey on September 25, 2023. The Sustainability Survey was emailed to 8,600 undergraduate and graduate students, stratified by classification (e.g. Freshman, Sophomore, etc.) and college/school/unit (CSU). The survey remained open for a little over 2 weeks and closed on October 10, 2023. Respondents who completed the survey were entered into a drawing to win one of ten $40 HEB gift cards, and one grand prize - a $500 HEB gift card. 1,842 students completed 100% of the survey and were included in the analysis and reporting of the results. This equates to a 21.4% response rate and provides us with sufficient information to generalize the data to the population - based on a 95% confidence interval, 5% margin of error. The assessment data was summarized by IRRIS through a report summarizing key insights and an interactive Tableau visualization.
The data for this report comes from the third BOLG survey, which was administered for three years in a row. Moving forward, the BOLG survey will be administered every other year.
A brief summary of results from the cultural assessment:
The Assessment of Sustainability Knowledge section of the survey included all 11 questions from the Sustainability Attitudes Scale (SAS). Questions and results are as follows:
Percent of respondents selecting “Strongly Agree”:
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Access to clean water is a universal human right – 84.4%
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Equal rights for all people strengthen a community – 80.6%
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Clean air is an important part of a good life – 79.9%
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Our present consumption of natural resources will result in serious environmental challenges for future generations – 67.3%
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Community cooperation is necessary to solve social problems – 66.4%
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Biological diversity, or the variety of life on Earth from genes to ecosystems, is in itself good – 66.4%
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I believe that many people can work together to solve global problems – 58.1%
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An unsustainable economy values personal wealth at the cost of others – 40.5%
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The well-being of others affects me – 40.0%
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I am willing to put forth a bit more effort in my daily life to reduce my environmental impact – 38.9%
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Generally speaking, consumerism, or the theory that individuals who consume goods and services in large quantities will be better off, is not sustainable – 32.1%
Optional Fields
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
Questions from full survey including the SAS: https://utexas.box.com/s/qpxkzdkjc7zvoa8wihjeo6n5slzo9ybn
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.