Action competencies for sustainability and its implications to environmental education for prospective science teachers: A systematic literature review

Students’ action competence must be taught and developed, particularly for prospective science
teachers, to have a pedagogical perspective as environmental educators. As indicated by
publications in respected journals, researchers’ focus and alignment on the issue of action
competence are highly expected. This systematic literature review aims to compare the findings
of research articles published by Web of Science-indexed journals. The keyword used to find the
articles on the Web of Science’s database was “action competence,” which discovered 193
publications. Furthermore, 25 articles met the criteria to be analyzed. Preferred reporting items
for systematic reviews and meta-analysis was the inclusion and exclusion model used. In the last
three years, research focused on action competence has increased. The research employed several
methods, i.e., qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and development research. Jelle Boevede Pauw and Wanda Sass were the authors who frequently published research that focused on
action competence. The keyword action competence was directly associated with environmental
education, sustainable development, education-based learning for sustainable development, and
evaluation. The authors who published their research with this focus were from 16 countries,
mainly from Europe, i.e., Sweden, Belgium, and Denmark. The continent diversity of authors who
contributed articles indicated that the action competence issue had become a global concern.
Furthermore, it was found that the number of non-collaborating publications (universities or
countries) was higher than those collaborating, even though single authors rarely wrote the
articles. The recent trend shows that publications are authored by scientists with various
backgrounds such as fields, universities, and even countries. The authors of this paper developed
and proposed eight ideas to be reflected by prospective science teachers or science teacher
education providers in educating future science teachers concerned about action competence
about sustainable development.