IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natsus/v4y2021i6d10.1038_s41893-021-00687-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The incoherence of sustainability literacy assessed with the Sulitest

Author

Listed:
  • Colin Kuehl

    (Northern Illinois University)

  • Aaron C. Sparks

    (Elon University)

  • Heather Hodges

    (University of California)

  • Eric R. A. N. Smith

    (University of California)

Abstract

Improving sustainability knowledge has long been central to international efforts to achieve sustainable development. In response to these efforts, which are formalized in Target 4.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals, a global group of scholars and practitioners, in cooperation with the United Nations, designed and fielded the ‘Sulitest’, a survey tool that assesses sustainability knowledge in a variety of contexts. The Sulitest has been taken by over 160,000 individuals across 63 countries. Despite its substantial use, there is little systematic analysis of the data or the test itself. We analyse the Sulitest using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, common techniques for identifying latent components within observed data. The Sulitest was designed to measure knowledge within four themes; however, this architecture is not supported by the data. Analysis suggests there is no coherent structure of sustainability knowledge. We urge caution to policymakers and educators when using the Sulitest as a diagnostic tool for assessing sustainability knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Colin Kuehl & Aaron C. Sparks & Heather Hodges & Eric R. A. N. Smith, 2021. "The incoherence of sustainability literacy assessed with the Sulitest," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 4(6), pages 555-560, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natsus:v:4:y:2021:i:6:d:10.1038_s41893-021-00687-6
    DOI: 10.1038/s41893-021-00687-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00687-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41893-021-00687-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Miguel Leiva-Brondo & Natalia Lajara-Camilleri & Anna Vidal-Meló & Alejandro Atarés & Cristina Lull, 2022. "Spanish University Students’ Awareness and Perception of Sustainable Development Goals and Sustainability Literacy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-26, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natsus:v:4:y:2021:i:6:d:10.1038_s41893-021-00687-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.