Systems Thinking and Leadership of Teachers in Education for Sustainable Development: A Scale Development

Abstract

This study aims to develop scales to measure teachers’ systems thinking and leadership in education for sustainable development (ESD) at an environmental care and culture school, which is important because the school serves as an ESD benchmark for other public schools. However, there is no adequate performance measurement scale that incorporates the three dimensions of the triple bottom line (TBL). The 133 samples in this study were collected from four schools in regencies and cities in Indonesia. We developed a scale to measure teachers’ systems thinking and leadership in ESD. The developed scale was then tested using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). We found that the teachers had the lowest performance in systems thinking competence compared to other competences, such as ability to plan content and social dimensions. The teachers set a good example by using polite language and gestures but did not model green behavior. The teachers also had low scores in peer participation in external organizations and activities. The scale formulated in this study can be used to measure teacher performance in ESD, although some indicators must be further developed. In the future, purely confirmatory studies can validate the dimensional structure of this exploratory factor analysis.