Quality Education for Sustainable Development: Evolving Pedagogies to Maintain a Balance Between Knowledge, Skills, and Values-Case Study of Saudi Universities

Abstract

Ozone depletion, global warming, soil degradation, etc., could be, to a great extent, instrumental in making our Earth an unsafe place. Therefore, to prevent further damage, Article 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) emphasizes spreading awareness among the members of the planetary community to protect the planet. The study aims to identify teaching pedagogies that can effectively develop awareness and responsibility among university youth for a sustainable future. The study adopts an exploratory triangulation approach and uses three instruments: a closed-ended questionnaire, a focus group interview, and a comparative performance of control and experimental groups. Fifty-one faculties from two government universities of Saudi Arabia: Qassim University, Qassim, and Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Alkharj along with 47 students pursuing conversation courses at Level Three in Prince Sattam University participated in the study. JASP 0.9 open-source software was used for statistical analysis. The results revealed that constructivist inquiry-based approaches promoted sustainable development education.