Student attitudes towards and skills for sustainable development 2012

This is a report on research carried out by the National Union of Students for the Higher Education Academy into student attitudes towards sustainable development, which was conducted in 2011. This research was carried out as a two phase study in order to continue research first conducted in 2010 by understanding trends in demands and expectations from first-year students new to university and to perform longitudinal tracking of demands and expectations from second-year students as they progress their university career.

The two phase approach included a brief desk review, to update the pre-existing 2010 review with the most up-to date secondary publications, which then informed a national online survey. The survey achieved representative samples of 1552 first-year students and 1641 second-year students. All students were in higher education and taking their first degree after not more than a year away from formal education.

The current research findings reinforce the conclusions of the 2010 research. Overall, the results for first and second-year students in 2011 showed no notable differences except where these are mentioned explicitly throughout the report.