TY  - JOUR
A1  - Braßler, Mirjam
A1  - Schultze, Martin
T1  - Students’ innovation in education for sustainable development - a longitudinal study on interdisciplinary vs. monodisciplinary learning
T2  - Sustainability
N2  - Innovative ideas are essential to sustainable development. Students’ innovative potential in higher education for sustainable development (HESD) has so far been neglected. Innovation is often associated with an interdisciplinary approach. However, the results of research on diversity and its role in innovation are inconsistent. The present study takes a longitudinal approach to investigating student teams in project-based learning courses in HESD in Germany. This study examines how innovation develops in interdisciplinary student teams in contrast to monodisciplinary student teams. The results of the latent change approach from a sample of 69 student teams indicate significant changes in students’ innovation over time. Monodisciplinary student teams outperform interdisciplinary student teams in idea promotion (convincing potential allies) at the beginning, whereas interdisciplinary student teams outperform monodisciplinary student teams in idea generation (production of novel and useful ideas) in the midterm. There is no difference in the long term. The results indicate that interdisciplinary student teams have an advantage in the generation of novel ideas but need time to leverage their access to different discipline-based knowledge. We discuss practical implications for the design of interdisciplinary learning with strategies to support students in the formation phase in project-based learning in HESD.
KW  - higher education for sustainable development
KW  - project-based learning
KW  - interdisciplinary learning
KW  - interdisciplinarity
KW  - student innovation
Y1  - 2021
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/57706
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-577062
SN  - 2071-1050
VL  - 13
IS  - Article 1322
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  -