Evaluation of environmental competencies in Higher Education Institutions (HEI). Case study: Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Ecuador

Abstract

Environmental competencies are defined as a set of skills, knowledge, attitudes, and values that individuals put into play in different contexts and that are achieved through Environmental Education. These are divided into environmental knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. The aim of the research is to evaluate environmental skills of students and professors at the Escuela Politécnica Nacional (EPN) of Ecuador through a mixed, qualitative, and quantitative approach, for which the questionnaire proposed by Álvarez García (2015; 2017) was adapted and applied. The combination of both approaches and the descriptive statistical analysis made it possible to propose management strategies that allow increasing environmental competencies for the specific context. It was determined that the methodological competencies and that the issues with the least evaluation are those of attitude and collective behavior, provoking the reflection that individual and small actions count in aspects of environmental sustainability, but coordinated solutions are also required at all levels.