Assessing students’ critical thinking in sustainable development. Extended description : 2024-05-10
Objectives
To support students to reflect and self-assess their competence of critical thinking in sustainable development.
Methods
The assessment items about competence in sustainable development are included under the dimension of critical thinking in SINCOE assessment tool.
This testing of these optional competence items in the assessment tool were implemented as students’ self-assessment with an electronic survey and completed with discussions and interviews.
The assessment topic, competence in sustainable development, was first briefly discussed with students, after which they answered to the survey including these optional items. Student were asked to consider these topics in their own studies so far, and after answering to the survey there was a discussion on their thoughts how they experienced the items. The respondents were students from engineering, business, and health and social sciences.
Environment
On-site. The self-assessment was implemented online students using their own mobile phones, and the discussion took place after the self-assessment as face to face.
Role
The teacher/tutor has an essential role in discussions with students, because a successful self-assessment always requires prior discussion with the students and should never be carried out without the students being prepared for it. The aim of the discussion is to explain to the participants what it is assessed, why it is assessed, and what the assessment items in practice can mean. Thus, no self-assessment tool is sufficient as such, but the importance of joint discussion and introduction to the assessment aims, methods and criteria used cannot be sufficiently emphasized.
Motivation
The students find the self-assessment of their own competence in sustainable development very important. Many of them mentioned competence in sustainable development being among the most important competences now and in the future in all jobs and positions.
Assessment
The expressions used, i.e. wording of the items, were found more or less complicated and difficult to understand. Thus, these items needs practical examples to be understood correctly. The items used in the self-assessment measuring the competences of sustainable development aim to support the students in the assessment of their own competence. In order for the assessment to be realistic and reliable, it is essential that the student understands a fairly general competence item correctly. For this reason, the examples of what the items can mean in practice are important for the success of self-assessment , and here the role of the teacher/ tutor is important.
