International Assessment of Sustainability Aptitude
IASA
IASA is a holistic assessment that goes above and beyond assessing only the academic proficiency of individuals. It is designed to be inclusive and ensures that no one is left behind in discovering their sustainability aptitude, that can help them create a more sustainable world.
IASA is the world’s first and biggest ‘sustainability aptitude assessment’.
IASA has been developed under the stewardship of Centre for Big Synergy (CBS), a CSO of the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs. Notably, CBS provided vital recommendations to the UK Department of Education’s (DfE) Strategy for Sustainability and Climate Change for the Education and children’s services systems (2022), which is currently impacting over 16 million children and young people in the UK.
IASA furthers the United Nations’ Education 2030 Framework for Action and complements the UK’s DfE’s endeavours of climate education in the UK alongside that of Governments across the world who are making exemplary efforts in educating generations of sustainability leaders at schools, colleges and universities.
Join the league of leading sustainability educators
BACKGROUND
IASA was born with the mission of furthering the United Nations Education 2030 framework for action (Paris, 2015) and to complement the exemplary endeavors of governments, schools, colleges and universities preparing the new generation of sustainability leaders.
It has taken over 6 years and thousands of hours of diligent research, consultation, implementation and refinement of the variables and parameters to create the framework of scenarios, questions and answers used for IASA. These are also constantly revised to reflect current scientific, social and economic facts and figures reported by UN agencies, governments, international not-for-profits and peer-reviewed publications.
IASA’s assessment framework was designed and tested rigorously by a multi-disciplinary group of experts with a collective experience of over 947 years. These highly accomplished and world-leading experts included education measurement experts, sustainability educators, social scientists, behavioural scientists, environmentalist, policy leaders, business leaders, sustainability advocates; engineering, environmental and healthcare scientists; legal and ethics gurus, as well as a diverse group of parents and students.
UNIQUENESS
IASA is a unique assessment to discover an individual’s sustainability aptitude.
It is a scenario-based, online aptitude test that assesses problem-solving abilities using one’s empathy, common sense and agency, coupled with general awareness of all-round sustainability. Unlike other aptitude tests or olympiads, IASA goes above and beyond assessing only the academic proficiency of an individual.
IASA has been designed to ensure that scenarios and questions provide adequate background for the respondents with minimum awareness of the issues and hence are informational as well. This unique construct of questions makes IASA as much as an assessment tool as it is an educational one.
IASA assesses three key attributes of an individual; cognitive, behavioural and emotional with 360-degree sustainability in perspective.
Behavioural attributes: Adaptability and flexibility; Attention to detail; Collaboration; Communication; Leadership; Organisation; Time management.
Cognitive attributes: Analytical skills; Creative thinking; Critical thinking; Numerical reasoning; Problem-solving; Systems thinking.
Emotional attributes: Commitment; Compassion; Empathy; Intrinsic Motivation; Open-mindedness; Optimism; Resilience; Self-Awareness; Tolerance
STANDARDS
IASA’s design incorporates robust validity, reliability, and fairness based on the guidelines and recommendations of international authorities and governing bodies;
1. International Guidelines for Test Use by the International Test Commission
2. Sustainability aptitude assessment framework, stipulations and guiding principles of the Centre for Big Synergy
3. Good Practice for Psychological Testing by the British Psychological Society
4. European Standards for Psychological Assessment by the European Federation of Psychologists Associations
5. Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing by the American Educational Research Association (AERA), American Psychological Association (APA), and National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME)
6. Canadian Psychological Association guidelines for Educational and Psychological Testing
7. Notable authorities on entrance and aptitude tests in major geographies including the National Education Examinations Authority (China), Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Science (Russia), National Testing Agency (India), Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (Singapore), Malaysian Examinations Council, Badan Nasional Standar Pendidikan (Indonesia), Sistema Nacional de Evaluación Certificación de la Calidad Educativa (Peru), Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior (Mexico), amongst others.
Who is IASA for?
IASA is for any 13- to 19-year-olds without any pre-qualifying academic proficiency or knowledge in specific subjects.
It is a holistic and inclusive assessment that goes above and beyond assessing the academic proficiency of individuals. Students from all academic disciplines and interests can undertake IASA designed for their specific age group.
IASA has also been designed to be suitable for the needs of neurominority individuals with conditions, such as ADHD, autism, dyscalculia, dyslexia, dyspraxia or similar, in line with the UK’s Equality Act 2010.
Structure
IASA is an online assessment of 45 – 60 minutes and is structured in three parts; environment, economy and society.
Thirty to 60 objective and subjective questions comprise the assessment. An adaptive algorithm selects questions and answer choices standardised by age, depending on the respondent’s response, from a curated bank of questions. These questions are updated regularly to be accurate, relevant and relatable. The algorithm takes into account geographic and cultural nuances as well.
All questions are based on scenarios that offer backgrounds for the respondent to then be able to suggest actionable solutions based on their sustainability aptitude, that is appropriate for their age group. Objective questions may have more than one correct answer. There is no negative marking for selecting wrong answers.