The concept of circular economy (CE) as a pragmatic path to contribute to the ecosystem's sustainability has drawn the attention of many scholars and practitioners during the last decade. Circularity aims to decouple environmental pressure from economic growth by addressing two ends: the unlimited extraction of virgin resources and pollution through anthropogenic processes. CE is becoming an area of interest in quality education for ecosystem sustainability, and its integration into higher education programmes is noticeable. Adopting an appropriate strategy for teaching CE has become crucial for the process of internalizing the concepts in students, as the conceptualization of CE is vague and still developing. While popularly used in higher education, case studies have not been explored in great depth as an approach to teaching CE. This chapter is focused on building themes to examine the effectiveness of using case studies to facilitate the internalization process of CE concepts in students. In-depth interviews were conducted with the ten facilitators, the whole population of respondents who used case studies in their respective courses. Data was analyzed thematically, and a study framework was developed using grounded theory. Three themes, student engagement, student reflection on concepts, and lifelong learning, were identified to measure the effectiveness of the process of internalization of CE concepts using a case study approach. Interestingly, the interviews also suggest that the relevance of the case studies used, time constraints and institutional and operational constraints, could hamper the investigation of the effectiveness of the approach to teaching. It is recommended that filling the gaps in CE content, building a wider pool of case studies appealing to students from different backgrounds, and rectifying institutional constraints will be necessary before a major study is conducted to examine the success of using case studies.

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Facilitation of the Internalization Process of Circular Economic Concepts in Students Through Quality Education: Use of Case Studies in Teaching

  • Kamani Sylva,
  • Olivia Ho,
  • Usha Iyer-Raniga,
  • Mahanama Dissanayaka,
  • Subarna Sivapalan

摘要

The concept of circular economy (CE) as a pragmatic path to contribute to the ecosystem's sustainability has drawn the attention of many scholars and practitioners during the last decade. Circularity aims to decouple environmental pressure from economic growth by addressing two ends: the unlimited extraction of virgin resources and pollution through anthropogenic processes. CE is becoming an area of interest in quality education for ecosystem sustainability, and its integration into higher education programmes is noticeable. Adopting an appropriate strategy for teaching CE has become crucial for the process of internalizing the concepts in students, as the conceptualization of CE is vague and still developing. While popularly used in higher education, case studies have not been explored in great depth as an approach to teaching CE. This chapter is focused on building themes to examine the effectiveness of using case studies to facilitate the internalization process of CE concepts in students. In-depth interviews were conducted with the ten facilitators, the whole population of respondents who used case studies in their respective courses. Data was analyzed thematically, and a study framework was developed using grounded theory. Three themes, student engagement, student reflection on concepts, and lifelong learning, were identified to measure the effectiveness of the process of internalization of CE concepts using a case study approach. Interestingly, the interviews also suggest that the relevance of the case studies used, time constraints and institutional and operational constraints, could hamper the investigation of the effectiveness of the approach to teaching. It is recommended that filling the gaps in CE content, building a wider pool of case studies appealing to students from different backgrounds, and rectifying institutional constraints will be necessary before a major study is conducted to examine the success of using case studies.