Sharing@HKUST Sustainability workshop Date: 25 January 2019 Sub-theme: Sustainability and Employability in Hong Kong Topic: Future employment & Learning expectations: Profiles of university students' attitudes

1. Future employment & learning expectations:
Profiles of university students’ attitudes
Sally Wan
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, CUHK
Sustainability & Employability in Hong Kong
Date: 25 January, 2019 (Friday)
Time: 9:00AM - 5:00PM
Venue: HKUST Business School Central
Rm 1501- 02, 15/F Hong Kong Club Building, 3A Chater Road, Central

2. Aims of the Study
1. To present the profiles of university students’ attitudes towards sustainability
and their perceptions about employment in sustainability markets, as well as
their learning expectations in sustainability education
2. To explore if there are any relationships between university students’
attitudes towards sustainability and their perceptions of sustainability
labour markets as well as learning expectations about sustainability

3. Method
Data collection
1. Participants: 101 university students
(undergraduates)
2. Online survey:
a. New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale
(Dunlap et al., 2000):
i. measure the ‘pro-ecological’ world
views
ii. 6-point Likert scale [Strongly
disagree (1) -- Strongly agree (6)]
b. NUS University Skills Survey (HEA, 2012)
i. examine university students’
learning expectations towards
sustainability education and job
employment needs in sustainable
job markets
ii. rank interesting topics regarding
sustainability
Data analysis
1. Reliability analysis
2. Exploratory factor analysis
3. Cluster analysis
4. MANOVA test
5. Chi-square test

4. Findings
Weak
pro-environment
alist
Moderate
pro-environment
alist
Strong
pro-environment
alist

5. Findings
● Tended to be positive
● Anthropocentrism>
Environmental concerns >
Balance of nature

6. Findings
● NO significant differences: relationships between perceptions of sustainability labour market & clusters
● lack of info about sustainability labour markets (Lozano, 2011)
● a gap of ‘holistic integration between environment and development’ (Pavlova, 2017)
→ needs for reviewing the current market needs (Frankham, 2017)
→ exploration of how to ‘fit in the transition from higher education’ to labour market (Grosemans,
Coertjens, & Kyndt, 2017)

7. Findings
● NO significant differences: students’ learning expectations about sustainability and clusters
● Pro-environmentalist students tended to have higher commitment and ‘intrinsic’ drive for
sustainability education
● External benefits about “proud to be part of a green university” …. such as brand and fame
(Uzzell, Pol, & Badenas, 2002; Karlsson & Luttropp, 2006)
● Further considerations: psychological factors (i.e. commitment, motivation) in designing
sustainability education

8. Findings
Most interesting…
1. Reuse/
vintage/
upcycling
(13.66%)
2. Habitat &
wildlife
(11.80%)
3. Water (12,11%)
● NO significant
differences: students’
most interesting
topics and clusters
● growing trends in consumption markets & more attention to the concepts of social responsibilities & business
ethics (Park, 2015; Popescu, 2017)
● ‘over’ familiar with topics like climate change & renewable energy due to social media influence (Sampei &
Aoyagi-Usui, 2009) & existence of compulsory learning topic in secondary education in HK

9. Conclusion
1. Connected transitions from higher education to
sustainable labour markets
2. Creation of space for learning about sustainability
taking students’ attitudes and other psychological factors
into account
3. Construction of up-to-date curriculum for
sustainability education