Abstract:

Universities have had to commit to education for sustainable development (ESD), with a construct that attempts to measure the effect of such curricular experience called sustainability consciousness (SC). However, there is little evidence of results that graph the trends in student profiles where the outcome of the effect of that experience is holistically visualised. The objective of this research is to examine the sustainable consciousness profiles of students as a result of a sustainable curricular experience at a Chilean university. It also examines the relationship between certain contextual variables (age, gender, and level of vulnerability). The probabilistic sample consisted of 759 students from a public university in northern Chile. Statistical analysis was performed using t-tests and bivariate scatter plots with four quadrants. The results show that age had a significant difference in sustainable knowingness; significant differences in gender in all its variables (knowingness, attitude, and sustainable behavior); and no significant difference in the case of vulnerability level. A moderate positive correlation was observed in the four-quadrant bivariate scatter plots between knowingness and sustainable attitudes, knowingness and sustainable behavior, and attitudes and sustainable behavior. The respective discussions are presented.