Sustainability Principles that Stick: Empowering Future Civil Engineers through Student-Driven Case Studies

In the quest to produce future civil engineering technology (CET) graduates with experiential knowledge of sustainability principles, a shift from the didactic approach of teaching towards a student-centred approach was adopted. Lecturer-led case studies have been promoted as a viable student-centred approach to teaching and have been adopted in many higher education institutes (HEIs) modules. However, studies have noted that better critical thinking, ingenuity and logical reasoning among students can be achieved when students select their cases. As such, this paper presents the findings of an observation from student-driven case studies used in teaching sustainability principles to CET students across four years (2019 to 2022). The study adopted an observation and evaluation of CET students' learning outcomes and performance over a four-year period at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. The findings revealed that students gained a better understanding and were more critical in their analysis and logical in proposing directions for improving sustainability in the assessed cases. Furthermore, students developed better relationships with industry stakeholders on the project they assessed and built a sense of belonging through interaction with projects within their locality. Empirical evidence shows that student-driven case studies can further improve students' performance when used to augment other forms of assessment like in-class tests and examinations. In practice, the findings should help lecturers effectively teach sustainability principles through a carefully selected student-centred approach that will ensure active and social learning and knowledge construction. The study offers a foundation for future works on student-driven case studies, particularly in the teaching of sustainability principles - an aspect that has received minimal attention in the discourse on the use of case studies in teaching civil engineering modules in HEIs.