Prioritizing elements of science education for sustainable development with the MCDA-FDEMATEL method using the flipped e-learning scheme

Abstract

Selecting and ordering components for sustainable science education is a critical issue, which is presently obtaining increased attention because of being at an early stage and scarce application in higher education. Though the flipped e-learning scheme is one of the novel information and communication technologies (ICTs), it can be of great relevance in a long-term learning program for various sustainable science education criteria. This research presents an approach to identify and analyze elements for science education for sustainable development with multi-criteria decision analysis-fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (MCDA-FDEMATEL) method by flipped e-learning system. With the method proposed, the main elements are collected as science-education, sustainable-development, technology-infrastructure and flipped-e-learning elements. The final results' analyses with sixteen sub-elements are assessed with weighted linear combination (WLC) and sensitivity-analysis (I to VI implementations) in the context of the MCDA-FDEMATEL method. The most important element and sub-element for science education for sustainable development through flipped e-learning teaching are sustainable-development (as an element), VI implementation with 0.540 weight, and environmental contents (as a sub-element) with 0.570 weight. Consequently, this proposed approach could be used in different studies to validate the most important aspects of science education for sustainable development through flipped e-learning teaching elements and sub-elements with equivalent and comparable education settings.