Efficacy of action competence training as a professional development strategy for equipping teachers with ESD readiness

Purpose Discussions on sustainability in higher education have primarily focused on theoretical and actionable contributions. Meanwhile, there are ongoing discussions that higher education typically focuses on knowledge-based strategies in its classrooms, neglecting the development of students’ action competence. Hinging on these, there are calls to transfer the skills required to actualize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to teachers in higher education. These calls are based on the premise that, to achieve the SDGs in higher education, teachers require knowledge- and action-oriented skills to design their classroom instruction accordingly. To achieve this, this study designed an action competency-based professional development for teaching education for SDGs. This study aims to investigate teachers’ perceptions of competency-based professional development for teaching education for SDGs. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-methods research design was used to investigate the opinions of 102 preservice teachers following 14 weeks of action competency-based professional development. Data were collected using a 17-item questionnaire and interview guides. Findings The study found that although the preservice teachers perceive themselves as action-competent, they did not acquire some aspects of the action competencies required to implement the SDGs. Nonetheless, this professional development concept helped equip teachers with some action competence to teach the SDGs in higher education. Originality/value Through mixed-methods research, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to report teachers’ opinions on the role of action competence readiness through professional development in teaching education for sustainability in higher education.