Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 68.31
Liaison Lisa Noriega
Submission Date Aug. 3, 2020

STARS v2.2

Yale University
AC-6: Sustainability Literacy Assessment

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 4.00 / 4.00 Lindsay Crum
Chief Manager for Sustainability Operations & Strategic Data
Yale Office of Sustainability
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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::
The entire (or predominate) student body, directly or by representative sample

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:

See attached SAMPLE.


A brief description of how the literacy assessment was developed and/or when it was adopted:

Through a comprehensive literature review and multiple editing rounds by focus groups and experts, we worked to create an accessible, comprehensive, and useful survey. We looked to measure both sustainability knowledge and behavior. By keeping the audience of our survey in mind and thinking about the goals we wish to accomplish with this survey, we were able to balance both our needs and the needs of our survey respondents. The survey goes out to faculty and staff, and to a representative sample of undergraduate students. For students specifically, this survey was administered to the class of 2022 when they were freshmen, and will be administered again when they are juniors in order to understand how a Yale education influences sustainability literacy. Preliminary research began in January 2017; the survey was created in the Fall of 2017, edited/tested in the Spring of 2018, and first administered in the fall of 2018; and the survey will be administered bi-annually going forward (next distribution in October 2020).


A brief description of how a representative sample was reached (if applicable) and how the assessment(s) were administered :

The survey uses a stratified random-sample methodology that follows a process developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and is administered to a representative sample size of the following populations: first– and third–year Yale College students; Yale staff; and Yale faculty.


A brief summary of results from the literacy assessment(s):

There were 1628 total responses to the survey in 2018, and the survey will next be distributed in the fall of 2020, at which point we will compare changes and improvements. Findings from the 2018 survey showed that the majority of the Yale community has a working knowledge of facts related to sustainability, and that members of the Yale community would be more inclined to perform sustainability behaviors if they had clearer ways to measure them and see their impact.


Website URL where information about the sustainability literacy assessment is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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