2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The role of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and engineering programs is crucial in the effort of creating sustainable awareness for building a prosperous and equitable society for all. Improving Sustainability Literacy (SL) worldwide contributes to both the advancement of Education for Sustainable Development and the progress of Sustainable Development Goals. Given the noteworthy contribution of both sustainability literacy and engineering programs in building a sustainable future for all, this paper aims to measure sustainability knowledge and to make comparisons among the educational levels of students enrolled in engineering programs such as undergraduate, master, and Ph.D.
The sample is composed of 94 students from engineering programs at all levels of higher education: undergraduate, master, and doctoral engineering related programs in an ABET accredited university in Bogota, Colombia. The instrument used in this study is the Sustainability Literacy Test (Sulitest), a standardized assessment tool endorsed by the United Nations to measure the level of sustainability knowledge. The instrument has been administered through an online platform to examine the state of Sustainability Literacy of the Engineering students in both undergraduate and graduate academic programs. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to test the hypotheses and make comparisons. The results show statistically significant differences of sustainability knowledge scores between students from undergraduate and graduate levels.
An unexpected finding involved the effect of generation on sustainability literacy. The sample’s undergraduates come from Generation Z, students who were born from 1993 to 2005, while the sample’s graduate students (Ph.D. and Masters) come from Generation Y, students who were born from 1977 to 1993. Generation Z has a significantly higher sustainability literacy than Generation Y, regardless of education level. Within Generation Y (when generation is held constant), education level (Ph.D. or Masters) explains differences in sustainability literacy, with Ph.D. being significantly higher than Masters. The findings provide significant insights to understand students’ sustainability knowledge in higher education institutions and strengthen the design of future sustainable global engineering courses.