Development and Application of the Sustainability Skills and Dispositions Scale to the Wicked Problems in Sustainability Initiative

Abstract

Throughout engineering curriculum there has been a growing focus on sustainability-related learning objectives, oftentimes with the ultimate learning goals being instilling dispositions such as the awareness of the environmental impact of engineering outcomes or concern towards social justice issues. Within this paper, we first provide an overview of an instrument we have developed to evaluate students' attainment of analogous learning objectives. This instrument, the Sustainability Skills and Dispositions Scale (SSDS), was designed to measure four sustainabilityrelated outcomes: (a) confidence in responding to wicked problems and awareness of (b) global, (c) social, and (d) environmental responsibilities as a designer. The SSDS was implemented pre-post within a course context as part of a multi-university initiative called the Wicked Problems in Sustainability Initiative (WPSI) during the Fall of 2014.