Assessing systems thinking: the role of reflective journals in education for sustainable development

Date

2026-07-14

Author

Sagdic, Ali
Şahin, Elvan

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System thinking has evolved as a key competency for sustainability. However, pre-service teachers often lack adequate preparation and assessing these competencies remains methodologically challenging. This study addressed both issues by examining how pre-service science teachers demonstrated systems thinking in the context of global and local sustainability challenges through reflective journals, while developing a framework for evaluating reflective reports in terms of systems thinking skills. A single case study approach was employed based on the learning experiences of 24 participants pursuing a course titled as 'Sustainable Development and Education' at a state university in Turkey. The findings revealed that, within the course which combined real-world problems with reflective practice, pre-service teachers' reflective journal entries showed systems thinking across five domains: recognizing own responsibility in the system, developing empathy with non-human beings, considering the relationship between past, present and future actions, identifying the components of a system, developing empathy with other people. The findings show how systems thinking skills appeared across different sustainability contexts and demonstrate that reflective journals serve effectively as both teaching and assessment tools within a metacognitive framework.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/120250

Collections

Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Article