Table 213 breakdown of ksas identified after the

Table 21.3 Breakdown of KSAs identified after the validation process
Sustainable
development
Human performance enablers
Knowledge Skills Attitudes Totals
Environment 43 (66) 46 (58) 28 (37) 117 (161)
Society 66 (78) 109 (101) 78 (79) 253 (258)
Economy 57 (67) 59 (63) 37 (39) 153 (169)
Totals 166 (211) 214 (222) 143 (155) 523 (588)
Note: Numbers in bracket represent the KSAs before validation

21 Canada: Generic Sustainable Development Skills 303
Focus Group Debriefing
A plenary debriefing session was held immediately following the validation ses-
sions. The purpose was to get a general sense of the experts’ reaction to the KSAs.
They were asked to focus their discussions around five thematic questions rather
than providing a detailed report of the validation. Key comments generated by these
questions are summarized below.
How can we consolidate knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed into a more man-
ageable set? It was suggested that themes could be developed to organize the infor-
mation better. Skills could be grouped into generic categories and attitudes could be
redefinedas‘values’.Thedivisionsbetweentheenvironment,economyandsocietyin
eachclustercouldbeeliminatedandsimilarideasandconceptscouldbeconsolidated.
Is it appropriate to use these three clusters (economy, environment and society)
to classify the knowledge, skills and attitudes? The experts felt it was necessary to
focus on the interdependencies between and within the groupings and that care was
needed to avoid creating ‘silos’ or ‘islands’ where each cluster is looked at as being
on its own.
Are the organizing statements used to breakdown the three clusters appropriate?
It was thought that the categories seem passive and more concrete action statements
were required. It was also suggested that it would be helpful to link the breakdown
within the clusters.
How adequately are the knowledge, skills, and attitudes in all three clusters cov-
ered? The experts suggested that incentives to change are lacking. Messages need
to be tailored to specific audiences/target groups and, furthermore, that valuing the
role of science is an important attitude that had not been captured.
What are some of the critical knowledge, skills, and attitudes that cut across
all three areas? The response listed: integration, innovation, responsibility, open-
mindedness, creativity and interdependency.
The most important revision made was to move away from the three content
organizers, namely, environment, society and the economy to avoid unnecessary
repetition and to establish the interconnectedness and interdependency among these
three elements. This was achieved by combining all the KSAs related to each of the
clusters (environment, society and the economy) into three separately categories.
The KSAs related to each of these new categories were then analysed for common-
alities and differences. Six major skill clusters emerged from that analysis:
Revised KSAs Inventory
1. Ethics and values : attitudes needed to behave and act ethically.