Analysis of Sustainable Development Questions of College Entrance Examination Geography Papers in China: 2010–2020
Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: International consensus has been reached for the 2030 Agenda, and governments have adopted measures for the gradual implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this implementation, education plays a crucial role. Recently, the extent to which Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has become the norm in national curricula, teacher education, and student assessment has been a focus of extensive research. The present study introduces the geography curriculum and the reform of the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) in China in the 2000s. A global indicator framework for SDGs is used to analyze sustainable development (SD) content and characteristics in NCEE geography papers. Findings reveal that SD accounts for an average of 71% of score points among the 24 sets of papers. Sustainable agriculture, terrestrial ecosystems, settlements, and water are well reflected in questions, especially water-related ecosystems, resilient agricultural practices, transportation system, tourism, desertification, and degraded land and soil. Sustainable development questions have the characteristics of setting open questions, paying attention to question situation, being close to real life, being moderately difficult, paying attention to regional SD and human-nature relationship, and diversifying question-setting patterns. According to the analysis of papers, SD plays an important role in geography education.
Source: Sustainability
DOI: 10.3390/su14031526
Authors: Fengtao Guo, Yushan Duan, Shanbo He, Qian Gong, Zeyang Yao
Institutions: East China Normal University, Nanjing Normal University
Language: English
Subfield: Geography, Planning and Development
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,094
OpenAlex ID: W4210534868