Students experience challenges across all four aspects of transdisciplinary learning for sustainability, including unsettling reflection on sustainability issues, tensions with non-academic partners, disciplinary communication difficulties, and struggles with multiple perspectives¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · reviewr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2025 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? In the reviewed studies, students reported challenges spanning responding to sustainability issues, engaging non-academic partners, integrating disciplinary knowledge, and incorporating multiple perspectives. → Weiwei Liu 2025
Evidence¶
Weiwei Liu 2025¶
Weiwei Liu, Valentina C. Tassone, Pascal Frank, Renate Wesselink, Harm J.A. Biemans. (2025). The role of human agency in dealing with challenges in transdisciplinary learning for sustainability in higher education: A scoping literature review. Educational Research Review 49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2025.100747
q2 · i? · review · r2
Synthesis of 36 empirical studies in a scoping review. The review reports that responding to sustainability issues was unsettling for many students, and that complexity and uncertainty could lead to undesirable coping behaviors, such as oversimplifying the problem or failing to involve all relevant societal partners.
"First, responding to sustainability issues was unsettling for many students because it required they to reflect on their assumptions about consumption, race, gender, and other social issues"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Research on transdisciplinary sustainability learning disproportionately examines students, with educational staff and societal partners underrepresented — related
- Interdisciplinary studio collaboration produced challenges including uneven workloads, vocabulary barriers, and difficulty giving cross-disciplinary feedback — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- Uncertainty is a central feature of challenges in transdisciplinary learning for sustainability, encompassing both emotional and cognitive dimensions — related
- Three general challenges recur in transdisciplinary learning environments: navigating uneven relationships, managing high time demands, and adapting to unfamiliarity with transdisciplinarity — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
td-learning-four-aspect-challenges |
title |
Students experience challenges across all four aspects of transdisciplinary learning for sustainability, including unsettling reflection on sustainability issues, tensions with non-academic partners, disciplinary communication difficulties, and struggles with multiple perspectives |
description |
Students experience challenges across all four aspects of transdisciplinary learning for sustainability, including unsettling reflection on sustainability issues, tensions with non-academic partners, disciplinary comm... |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
2025 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-21 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — weiwei-liu-2025 |
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