Mapping ESD competencies in civil engineering: a scoping review

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Use this framework as a basis for designing ESD assessments and curriculum alignment in civil engineering programs.

🏢実務担当者:Apply this framework to map your civil engineering program's sustainability competencies across curricular and institutional elements.

🏛政策担当者:Consider this framework when updating accreditation standards for civil engineering education to include sustainability competencies.

Despite numerous efforts to understand education for sustainable development (ESD) in engineering, understanding within civil engineering remains limited. This study aims to formulate an ESD competency framework tailored to civil engineering and shows how eight competencies are embedded across five reinforcing elements of practice: curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, technology use and institutional support. A scoping review following the PRISMA for Scoping Review (PRISMA ScR) framework was conducted using Scopus as the primary database, covering peer reviewed journal articles published from 1999 to 2025. The final data set of 126 articles was used to map the eight ESD competencies; systems thinking, anticipatory, normative, strategic, collaboration, critical thinking, self-awareness and integrated problem solving against the five elements. A consultation with one accredited civil engineering programme used open-ended interview and document review, analysed via content analysis mapped to the competency element matrix to identify appraised clarity, fit and implementation gaps. The review finds systems thinking and anticipatory most frequently evidenced, followed by normative and strategic; collaboration and critical thinking are common but variably operationalised, while self-awareness and integrated problem solving are least represented. Evidence concentrates in curriculum and assessment for systems and critical thinking, pedagogy for collaboration and institutional support for anticipatory, with limited coverage of technology use. ESD competency in civil engineering requires an integrated blend of tacit and explicit knowledge, technical and interpersonal skills and practice-based experience. The study presents a concise framework mapping eight competencies to five elements, and a consultation demonstrates applicability and targeted improvements. The framework provides programmes with a clear map to align curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, technology use and institutional support with the eight ESD competencies, generating evidence needed for sustainability related accreditation. It can guide curriculum mapping and gap analysis, syllabus and rubric development and revision and the formalisation of external projects and reviews, thereby improving assurance of learning outcome and graduate readiness for sustainability informed civil engineering practice. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by developing a civil engineering specific translation and operationalisation layer that links the established eight ESD competencies to five reinforcing programme elements: curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, technology use and institutional support. By theorising these elements as under specified variables within existing competency frameworks, the study provides an evidence grounded structure for programme level design, implementation and evaluation of ESD competency development in civil engineering education.

• semanticscholar https://doi.org/10.1108/ijshe-08-2025-0976first seen 2026-07-16 06:32:16