Sport Academics’ Awareness and Knowledge of Sustainability in Higher Education in Türkiye

Abstract

It is widely accepted that sport plays a critical role in the achievement of sustainable development goals. The sport colleges, faculties, and universities that have undertaken the role to educate students, future trainers, educators, managers, and academic staff naturally have a significant impact on increasing awareness regarding sustainability issues. Therefore, in this study, the awareness, perception, and knowledge of the academic staff working in sport faculties and the factors affecting them are analyzed. For this purpose, a survey including a total of 19 questions is designed to measure the level of awareness regarding sustainable development, and it is answered by 366 faculty members in all 75 sport faculties in Türkiye. The results of the study point out that the vast majority of sport academics at universities have a common, general understanding of sustainability, but insufficient awareness of sustainable development goals and the relationship between sport and sustainable development. Furthermore, recognition and awareness regarding sustainable development seem to be limited at the institutional level. However, the results also imply that a great majority of the respondents are aware of the importance of sustainability and consider it necessary to improve themselves and their courses accordingly. Therefore, including sustainability issues in the curriculum, increasing awareness in all layers of institutions, and implementing sustainability in the entire higher education system with projects, seminars, and on-campus events are recommended.

1. Introduction

The world is coping with climate change, biodiversity losses, hunger, and inequality mostly as a result of the negative consequences of economic growth. Rapid industrialization together with population growth raises serious problems that can be solved only at a universal level. A stable climate, fair economies, and sustainable resource development should be considered globally. The Brundtland report [1] stated that many of our problems are common and called for a strategy for united development and protection of the environment. Since that time, human development has progressed remarkably on a global level, whereas the impacts of human activity on the universal environment have worsened simultaneously. Many of the global problems we are facing today are more acute or larger in scale than they were in the past.

As part of a worldwide effort to find solutions, the idea of “sustainable development” has been adopted. As described in the Brundtland report [1], sustainable development is defined as progress that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. After the release of the Brundtland Report, 193 Member States of the United Nations adopted, in 2015, 17 Sustainable Development Goals to reach, 169 targets to accomplish, and over 240 indicators to measure in order to guide actions of governments, international agencies, civil society, and other institutions for the next 15 years (2016–2030). Each Sustainable Development Goal presents specific targets such as economic efficiency, food security, climate change mitigation, equity, justice, etc., which are assumed to be adopted by all countries.

The perspective of sustainable development goals is based on the idea that the political nature of sustainable development must be recognized for progress. Most of the outcomes important for sustainability are linked to national and global policies. Therefore, global commons, understandings, and actions should be built, pursued, and managed while considering sustainability. Although designing global and national policies are important in recognizing and implementing sustainability, its success comes down the individuals’ perception of sustainability in the end. The core units are the practitioners’ behaviors, beliefs, and recognition of sustainability needs as requiring a lifelong approach.

Sustainable development should be embedded in an individual’s behavioral ethics starting from early childhood learning. Therefore, education at all levels should play a decisive role by providing necessary awareness regarding sustainability challenges. In this regard, higher education plays an important role in transferring and implementing sustainable development in society. According to Lozana [2], sustainable development must be an integral part of higher education and must be put into practice long enough with the majority of members until widespread implementation occurs. Introducing sustainable development into the curriculum and making it ubiquitous throughout the entire higher education system through courses, projects, seminars, and activities seems to be significant for achieving this goal. This could be facilitated by integrating sustainable development subjects within all higher education decision-making levels, campus life, classes, and research. Starting from an individual-based approach, academic recognition of the importance of sustainable development at all levels of higher education is essential.

Higher education organizations and management systems carry out an essential role but success depends on the recognition and understanding of practitioner units, i.e., academic staff from bottom to top. Through their direct relationship with students in classes and courses, they can provide effective teaching to facilitate the transition necessary for sustainable development. Eventually, academic staff’s recognition and knowledge of sustainable development determine the success of progress. They should have a strong understanding of sustainable development to represent their knowledge and scope during education and research activities as well as in their daily life activities off campus. Progress has to be in line with institutional approaches. The efforts of practitioner units alone fall short if they are not supported by the overall higher education system from bottom to top.

Today, sport is a sector by itself and is the most important engine and dynamo of development. It is becoming widely accepted that sport has a critical role to play in the achievement of the SDGs. It contributes to sustainable development by promoting health education, promoting human values such as empathy and teamwork, facilitating conflict resolution in divided societies, integrating the marginalized, preventing racism and prejudice, promoting health education, promoting gender equality by providing necessary skills for women to become equal participants, preventing social exclusion, etc. [3,4,5,6,7]. Despite the fact that every education field could and should be linked to education regarding sustainability, we believe that sport has a broader and more special connection with sustainability than other fields due to its globality, structure, nature, and promises. We have carried out this study on sport scholars with the belief that academics who train athletes, sport educators, and sport managers, that is, those who prepare and train the founders of the sport environment of the future, should take more responsibility for sustainability goals than educators in other branches. Therefore, this study was carried out to examine the awareness and knowledge levels of the instructors teaching at faculties of sport sciences regarding sustainable development.

Therefore, in this study, we aimed to analyze the awareness, perception, and knowledge of the academic staff and the institutional perception regarding sustainable development goals and the external factors affecting them. For this purpose, we designed a survey and collected a total of 366 data points from the academics of sport faculties in Türkiye. As far as we know, few studies have been conducted in Türkiye within the framework of university education and in terms of knowledge and awareness of academics. In particular, there has been no study specific to Turkish sports faculties, which are expected to be in a much more special and close relationship with sustainability. Therefore, we hope that this study will contribute to the literature in terms of closing this gap and bringing a new perspective to higher education in line with the results obtained.

In the following section, our research question is described in light of previous literature. The other section explains the link between sport and sustainability goals. The Section 5 clarifies how the survey was designed and tested to measure the individual and institutional perception of sustainable development of sport academic staff. Results are explained in the conclusion and interpreted in the discussion sections.

2. Issues on Implementing Sustainable Development in Higher Education Institutions

The universally accepted definition of sustainable development presented in 1987 within the Brundtland Commission Report [1] is “sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs”. Considering the need for global efforts to cope with sustainability, the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015 [8] in which 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) are declared.

To cope with sustainability issues, the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes of individuals are likely to be the most important factors and individuals must become sustainability change-makers [9]. Individual perception of sustainability should start within the family, but awareness of sustainable development issues can be developed through education. Education, therefore, is crucial for the achievement of sustainable development. This is underlined in the SDG 4 (Quality Education) consisting of 10 targets that ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all [8] (p. 14). Importance of quality education is explained in UNESCO [10] (p. 21) as: “quality education for sustainable development is about what people learn, its relevance to today’s world and global challenges, and how learners develop the skills and attitudes to respond to such challenges and prosper, now and for future generations.” Sustainability perceptions are generally limited to climate change, polluting the environment, decreasing greenhouse emissions, etc. However, the above quotation states that education for sustainable development represents a broader approach to the environment, economy, and society. Although the 2030 Agenda links education with other sustainable development goals, including SDG 3 (Health and Well-being), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 13 (Climate Change Mitigation), it is also associated with almost all the other SDGs in one way or another [9]. Therefore, not only should people take the environmental impacts of their economic behaviors into account, but the social and cultural impact of their behaviors as well.

Sustainable development progress should move together and take steps with society. It is agreed that a path to sustainability depends on how societies educate the next generation [11] (p. 277). This statement indicates that individual perception of sustainability is shaped by education. Education contributes to sustainable development by addressing equality, peace and security, and the quality of life at individual, family, societal, and global levels [12] (p. 30). Thus, “Education can, and must, contribute to a new vision of sustainable global development” [10] that should cover lifelong learning starting from preschool in addition to self-directed educated parents. Lifelong learning starts with birth and continues throughout all the stages of life [13] (p. 415) and includes all learning activities undertaken throughout life to improve knowledge, skills, and competencies within personal, civic, social, and employment-related perspectives [14].

In this respect, higher education plays a special role in lifelong learning. The responsibility of higher education in the construction of a sustainable world by educating and creating agents of change is highlighted in The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012 [15] (pp. 138–140). By educating future leaders and decision-makers, higher education institutions play an important role in transforming societies [2,16,17]. This raises a crucial question of how universities could be agents of change by putting SDGs and sustainability teaching into practice [18] (p. 286).

Covering sustainability issues in higher education institutions requires a structural and cultural approach. Higher education institutions have extensive learning and teaching activities that encompass undergraduate and graduate teaching, professional training, executive and adult education, online learning, co-curricular activities, and student clubs and societies [18]. Accordingly, change toward sustainability requires approaches engaging all aspects of universities that connect curriculum, campus life, research, and community strategies and action [2,16]. Higher education institutions are complex systems, and making changes in them is not an easy process. Therefore, the above-mentioned shift should include the incorporation of universal and national policies involving higher education systems and also integrate individuals into those systems. Therefore, the integration of sustainable development education into the higher education system requires a holistic approach and should start with the awareness of sustainability at all levels.

The concern about integrating sustainability issues into the higher education system is more challenging than it seems to be. Although most research underlines the importance of an academic staff’s perception of sustainability, it is also argued that academics do not see the connection between sustainable development and teaching innovation [19]. Since there is a direct interaction with students in courses, academic staff engagement and understanding of sustainability are critical in transferring the awareness of the students and are needed to reorient existing educational programs to address sustainability subjects. Curricula should be prepared accordingly to make the reorientation systematic. This also includes considerations regarding courses and teaching materials, academic research, students’ involvement, and campus management [15]. If sustainability subjects are not integrated into the higher education system, then individual efforts could be the alternative. However, as the decision-makers in the higher education institutions are part of academic staffs, supporting academics with necessary sustainability comprehension could lead to an integrated sense of sustainability in the system. Lack of incentives, time and financial resources, unclear institutional support, crowded curricula, and limited commitment from external bodies and stakeholders are barriers to a systematic integration [20,21,22,23]. However, academics’ lack of knowledge and competencies is the main impeding factor in embedding sustainability subjects into the higher education system [21].

3. Sport and Sustainable Development

Since the early 2000s, sport has become an increasingly important topic on policy and development agendas around the world. The idea that sport has the power to change the world, attributed to Nelson Mandela’s speech at the Laureus Sport for Good Awards in 2000, has received great attention in domestic and foreign policy discourses. Today, it serves as a tool that both fosters inclusive cultural norms and societal values and addresses numerous themes that affect social, economic, and environmental development worldwide both positively and negatively [7]. These include health, education and community initiatives, environmental protection campaigns, humanitarian and human rights programs, peace and reconciliation plans, and corporate social responsibility [4].

Although sport is not directly mentioned among the goals or objectives of the UN 2030 Agenda, paragraph 37 of the agenda states that sport can be an important provider of sustainable development and peace [8] (p.10). This perspective is based on the contribution of sport to tolerance; respect; the empowerment of women, youth and communities; and to health, education, and social projects. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are adopted as a common language to unify a global commitment to reorienting social, economic, and environmental development issues. Sport is widely accepted and promoted as a mechanism that enables social change, strategically mapping and measuring sustainability commitments [24]. Transforming our World: the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development [8] includes the following statement in paragraph 37: “Sport is also an important enabler of sustainable development. We recognize the growing contribution of sport to the realization of development and peace in its promotion of tolerance and respect, and the contributions it makes to the empowerment of women and young people, individuals, and communities, as well as to health, education, and social inclusion objectives”. Within the scope of Action 2 of the action plan created within the Sixth International Conference of Ministers and Senior Officials Responsible for Physical Education and Sport (MINEPS VI) held in Kazan [25], a focus on developing indicators to measure the contribution of physical education, physical activity, and sport to priority SDG targets is included.

Advocacy and support of sport as a way of addressing the various targets contained in the SDGs proposed by global organizations such as the UN have driven many organizations, both private and state-funded, to use sport as a cultural tool to achieve their goals [6,26]. In addition, numerous case study examples of sport-based programs demonstrate the potential of sport to contribute to the SDGs (e.g., [27]). With the rise of non-governmental organizations in the 1990s and the subsequent release of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals in 2000, sport began to become popular as a low-cost and high-impact tool in development practice [28]. Before long, the Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) Movement and international non-governmental organizations working with governments, transnational companies, and numerous sport stakeholders leading this partnership began to emerge rapidly [29,30].

Sport as a lifestyle contributes to sustainable development. Success lies in directing children and young people to sport and educating them with regard to the idea of sustainability. Together with physical education, the awareness of educators such as teachers, trainers, and sport managers are important, and higher education institutions also play a key role. Sport colleges, faculties, and universities have undertaken the role to educate students, future trainers, educators, managers, and academic staff. Since there is a direct interaction between students in courses and academic staff engagement, the perception of these institutions is critical in transferring the awareness of sustainability to students, future coaches, trainers, athletes, sport scientists, sport educators, and sport managers.

4. Hypotheses Development

The higher education system plays a crucial role in increasing young people’s understanding of sustainability. The degree of expertise and attentiveness of instructors, however, plays a major role in this purpose. They are able to achieve an effective and essential transition of the sensitivity of students to sustainability issues due to their close relationships with students in their courses. In the end, the performance of the progress is determined by academic staffs’ awareness and knowledge of sustainable development. They should have a solid grasp of sustainability issues to impart their knowledge and perspective to students as well as to their own academic studies and daily life activities. Nevertheless, scholars’ efforts alone fall short if the entire higher education structure, from the ground up, does not support them.

Higher education plays an important role in developing students’ ability to become future generations with sustainable values and is also a socialization site for sustainability [31,32]. Hay and Eagle [33] revealed that adding sustainability education to curricula positively affects students’ awareness and behaviors regarding sustainability. On the other hand, in cases where curricula are not designed to cover sustainability issues, courses on related topics are not compulsory, and educational institutions do not prioritize these issues, education for sustainability is entirely at the initiative and mercy of educators. In order for educators to take initiative on sustainability, they must first have sufficient knowledge, awareness, and consciousness.

Examining three international indexes (Stars, UI GreenMetric, and Times Higher Education), Gedikkaya et al. [34] claimed that, although awareness of sustainable development has improved in Turkish universities in the last decade, there is still a significant gap between Turkish universities and foreign counterparts, and only a few Turkish universities could exist among the top 100 universities in the world rankings. A total of 57% of Turkish universities have general policies and strategies for sustainable development, but these are mostly linked to environmental issues. Additionally, only 7 out of 207 Turkish universities publish sustainability reports [35]. In most of the Turkish sport faculties we have examined, sustainable development is included in the curricula as elective courses; however, a large majority of them are not open. This can be the result of limited student interest, crowded curricula, and also the incompetency of academics in sport faculties.

According to the aforementioned information, this study aims to examine the awareness and knowledge levels of scholars of faculties of sport sciences about sustainability. Our first concern is whether academic staff have a clear understanding of sustainability and its connection with sport, and our second concern is how they evaluate the institutional approaches to sustainable development in the academic system. Furthermore, the ideas, initiatives, and voluntary behaviors of the participants are covered in the scope of this research. However, as explained above, the impact of institutional approaches on ESD is significant, we propose the following hypotheses based on the belief that academics will take initiative and improve institutional approaches depending on their perception and awareness levels:

H1. 

Sport academics’ awareness of sustainable development, SDGs, and their connection with sport is insufficient.

H2. 

The importance given to sustainable development education in the administrative units of universities is perceived as insufficient by sport academics.

H3. 

Sport academics consider it necessary to obtain and provide their students with education for sustainable development.

5. Materials and Methods

To test the hypotheses of this study, a questionnaire consisting of a total of 19 questions was designed. While preparing the questionnaire, the following stages were followed. Before the preparation of the questions (for the preliminary test), books, articles, and theses about education on sustainability were scanned. A conceptual framework was created based on the themes that individuals emphasized concerning awareness of sustainability. As a result, an item pool of 28 items, which was thought to represent perception, knowledge, awareness, and practices of sustainability, was created. In the second stage, the opinions of faculty members who had expertise in educational sciences, guidance, social work, psychology, and measurement and evaluation were consulted for the content validity of the items. In line with these opinions, the survey was reduced to 19 items, which were categorized according to 4 aspects. A total of 6 questions (1–6) were prepared to measure the awareness levels of the participants regarding sustainable development, sustainable development goals, global and national applications of these goals, and the relationship between sport and sustainable development. A total of 5 questions (7–10, 13) were designed to measure the level of importance that the administrative management units of universities in which the participants work give to sustainable development education, and 4 questions (11, 12, 15, 16) were designed to measure the extent to which the participants consider it necessary to provide education on sustainable development to their students. The remaining 4 questions (14, 17–19) of the questionnaire were created to measure how much the participants included sustainable development concepts in their personal lives, extracurricular academic activities, and in terms of intervention with others.

The analyses performed for testing construct validity were conducted with the SPSS 21.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, Armonk, NY, USA) program. First, it was examined whether the data were suitable for the construct validity analysis. The 4th, 15th, and 16th questions of the questionnaire, which were dichotomous, could not be included in the construct validity analysis due to their natures, and the analysis continued with the remaining 16 questions. However, since our aim here was to obtain the opinions of the participants rather than to develop the survey as a generalizable scale in a broad perspective, in practice, these questions were not removed from the survey and their answers were evaluated for comment.

In order for the data to be suitable for factor analysis, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) coefficient should be higher than 0.60 and the Bartlett’s test should be significant. KMO values between 0.80–0.90 were determined to be the most appropriate level for factor analysis [36]. In the analysis, the KMO coefficient of the survey questions was 0.805 and Bartlett’s test was significant (p < 0.001). The results displayed in

Table 1. KMO coefficient and Bartlett’s Test.

Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin Coefficient		0.805
Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity	Chi-Square	1732.194
	df	120
	p	0.000

indicate that there is a sufficient sample size for factor analysis and a convenient relationship between the items [36].

An exploratory factor analysis was applied to the questions. As can be seen from the results shown in

Table 2. Rotated Component Matrix.

	1	2	3	4
V7	0.853
V9	0.838
V10	0.804
V8	0.785
V13	0.664
V6		0.848
V2		0.808
V5		0.804
V3		0.749
V1		0.663
V18			0.860
V19			0.852
V17			0.849
V14			0.719
V11				0.853
V12				0.805

Extraction method: principal component analysis; rotation method: varimax with Kaiser normalization; rotation converged in 5 iterations.

, the results confirmed the planned dimensions while designing the questions. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th questions formed the first dimension (individual awareness); the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 13th questions formed the second dimensions (perceived institutional concern); the 14th, 17th, 18th, and 19th questions formed the third dimension (voluntary individual behaviors); and the 11th and 12th questions formed the fourth dimension (perceived education need). However, as is known, according to Tabachnick and Fidelle [36], there is a condition that there should be at least three questions under a factor. As stated before, the study conducted here is not a scale development study, and the results obtained are not intended to be generalized to other regions and branches, but only reveal the views of academics of sport faculties in Türkiye. Therefore, although a dimension planned while designing the questionnaire seems to be excluded completely, the questions which cannot be considered dimensions in the statistical sense and likewise the dichotomous questions were also taken into consideration for interpretation of the participants’ awareness and opinions.

Table 3. Total Variance Explained.

Factors *	Eigenvalue	Variance (%)	Cumulative (%)
1	5.595	34.968	34.968
2	2.949	18.430	53.399
3	1.797	11.233	64.632
4	1.202	7.512	72.144

* 1: Perceived institutional concern; 2: Individual awareness; 3: Voluntary individual behaviors; 4: Perceived education need.

displays the 4 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. It can be seen that the sum of the explained variance ratio of the 4 factors is 72.144%, which is quite sufficient in accordance with the rule that it should be at least 40% and above in multi-factor studies [36]. Finally, reliability analysis was performed to see whether the dimensions produced consistent results. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for each dimension of the survey is given in

Table 4. Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficients of the Dimensions.

Dimension	Cronbach’s Alpha (α)
Individual awareness	0.849
Perceived institutional concern	0.803
Voluntary individual behaviors	0.828

. The 4th dimension (perceived education need) could not be included in the reliability analysis because of its insufficient number of items, since the dichotomous ones were removed. As can be seen from the table, the Cronbach alpha coefficients of the three dimensions are above the lowest value of 0.70 recommended by Nunnally and Bernstein [37]. In this case, it is possible to say that the items of the dimensions are reliable.

The distribution of the data was examined using descriptive statistics, as shown in

Table 5. Descriptive Statistics.

								Frequency of the Answers *
Questions *	N	Mean	Std. Dev.	Skewness	Kurtosis	Min	Max	1	2	3	4	5
1	366	2.3989	1.00922	0.423	−0.045	1	5	76	120	132	24	14
2	366	1.7705	0.90163	1.1	0.861	1	5	176	118	56	12	4
3	366	1.7213	0.92095	1.089	0.536	1	5	200	84	70	8	4
4a	366		0.28285	2.933	6.64	1	2	334	32
4b	366		0.49671	−0.254	−1.946	1	2	160	206
4c	366		0.44622	1.022	−0.961	1	2	266	100
4d	366		0.36049	1.936	1.757	1	2	310	56
4e	366		0.49978	−0.121	−1.996	1	2	172	194
4f	366		0.31916	2.427	3.914	1	2	324	42
4g	366		0.26616	3.2	8.283	1	2	338	28
4h	366		0.24787	3.524	1.479	1	2	342	24
4i	366		0.50056	0.044	−2.009	1	2	187	179
4j	366		0.48732	−0.474	−1.786	1	2	141	225
4k	366		0.44897	0.991	−1.023	1	2	264	102
4l	366		0.50032	0.077	−2.005	1	2	190	176
5	366	2.7432	1.29684	0.35	−1.01	1	5	66	120	70	62	48
6	366	2.2896	1.16959	0.66	−0.488	1	5	110	124	66	48	18
7	366	2.8579	0.92546	0.036	−0.292	1	5	24	102	154	74	12
8	366	2.5355	1.00279	0.115	−0.557	1	5	64	108	136	50	8
9	366	2.5082	1.00883	0.171	−0.442	1	5	68	106	140	42	10
10	366	2.9781	0.99289	0.044	−0.479	1	5	22	96	138	88	22
11	366	3.9399	0.79153	−1.226	2.623	1	5	6	16	42	232	70
12	366	4.1694	0.71672	−1.25	3.716	1	5	4	6	26	218	112
13	366	2.3825	0.81501	−0.197	−0.661	1	4	58	130	158	20	0
14	366	2.4699	1.04576	0.123	−0.61	1	5	84	86	146	40	10
15	366		0.19207	4.835	2.491	1	2	352	14
16a	352		0.49433	0.324	−1.906	1	2	204	148
16b	352		0.48761	0.469	−1.79	1	2	216	136
16c	352		0.47656	0.647	−1.59	1	2	230	122
16d	352		0.33753	2.201	2.86	1	2	306	46
17	366	2.377	1.01761	0.07	−0.75	1	5	96	80	152	32	6
18	366	2.9126	1.03791	−0.09	−0.478	1	5	38	80	144	84	20
19	366	2.847	1.04085	0.017	−0.366	1	5	42	82	154	66	22

* The questions and the answers are given in Appendix A.

, including mean, median, standard deviation, kurtosis, and skewness values, to understand whether the main variables of the study showed a normal distribution. According to Tabachnick and Fidelle [36], it is considered normal for the skewness coefficient to take values between ±2 and ±3. As can be seen in Table 5, the distribution is accepted as normal since the skewness coefficients of all the variables of the study are between ±2 values. As a result of descriptive statistics, the frequency and percentage of each question were also obtained. The frequencies are listed in Table 5, and the percentages are presented in Appendix A.

6. Results

The second dimension of the survey, which measured the extent of sport academics’ awareness of sustainable development and SDGs, consisted of 6 questions about the definition of sustainability, the agenda of sustainable development, the content and scope of SDGs, the agreements in which Türkiye is involved, and the link between sport and sustainability. According to the results, 90–97% of the participants had no or limited knowledge regarding these issues. Especially 73.6% of the participants had no knowledge of Türkiye’s steps regarding sustainability. Due to the accumulated results, it can be stated that 96.7% of the respondents were unaware of the progress in Türkiye. The answers given to the question about the content and the scope of SDGs indicate that the sustainability perception of individuals was generally limited to climate change, polluting the environment, and decreasing greenhouse emissions, which are mostly linked with environmental issues. Accordingly, H1 is confirmed since sport scholars’ awareness of sustainable development, SDGs, and the relationship between sport and sustainable development is observed to be insufficient.

For the perceived institutional concern, the first dimension of the survey, we first asked the respondents if there were any practices on their campuses related to sustainable development. Respondents answering “I am sure that there are not any” totaled 6%, and “I am sure that there are” again totaled 6%. Meanwhile, 26.2% of the participants answered, “I guess there are not any”, whereas 24% of them replied, “I guess there are”. A total of 37.7% of the respondents had no knowledge regarding the practices on their campuses. This indicates that even though there were some practices on their campuses, their objectives were not recognized well. Secondly, we asked the respondents if there were any decisions taken by the rectorates, faculties, and departments such that sustainable development should have taken place in the curricula. Here, we assumed that even though the academic staff did not get involved in the decision-making processes of their universities, they could easily reach the upper management levels such as the deaneries and rectorates and that they were aware of the decisions taken at departmental levels. The results became more astonishing as they went down from rectorate levels to departmental levels. “I am sure that there are not any” answers increased to 17.5% in faculty and 18.6% in departmental levels. At the departmental level, 2.7% of the respondents replied, “I am sure that there are”. These values indicate that the recognition and awareness regarding sustainable development were limited in all layers of the management of the universities. This is not surprising at all, since the directors are also members of the academic staff and carry out their academic perception in their management approach. Therefore, we can assert that there is a lack of awareness and concern of sustainability at institutional levels. The importance given to education for sustainable development in the administrative units of universities seems to be insufficient, thus verifying H2.

For evaluating the participants’ perceived education need, the fourth dimension of the survey, we first asked them whether they considered a personal need to be informed about sustainable development. A total of 82.5% of the participants answered, “I need” and “I really need a lot”. We also asked the respondents whether they thought that their colleagues possessed sufficient knowledge about sustainable development. A total of 46.5% of the participants thought their colleagues possessed sufficient information, and 39.9% of them possessed no knowledge regarding the knowledge level of their peers. These percentages show that the participants did not have much knowledge regarding their colleagues’ knowledge levels relating to sustainability. Another question was about whether the respondents took initiative and linked their course subjects to sustainable development, even though it is not required. A total of 23% of the answers were “never”, 23.5% of them were “little”, and 39.9% of them were “when it comes to”, which total 86.3% and is nearly consistent with the other above questions. A total of 90.2% of the respondents thought that universities/faculties/departments should provide regular training to academic staff about sustainable development. A total of 96.2% of the participants stated that universities should provide training about sustainable development to students. A total of 55.7% of the answers proposed that sustainable development should be a mandatory course for every student. According to 59% of the respondents, sustainable development should be an elective course. A total of 63.8% of the participants indicated that sustainable development ideas should be provided to students through seminars, and 83.6% of them remarked that sustainable development issues should be included in all courses regardless of their content. Regarding H3, it is affirmed since sport academics consider it necessary to obtain and provide their students with education regarding sustainable development.

The third dimension of the survey was designed to understand the voluntary individual behaviors of sport scholars regarding sustainability issues. We asked the respondents whether they included sustainable development goals in their extracurricular academic studies and activities. Only 8.7% of them answered “at every opportunity”, and 1.6% answered “definitely”. Another question in this part asked whether the respondents took care to live in line with sustainable development goals in their personal lives. A total of 5.5% of the answers were “definitely”, and 23% of them were “at every opportunity”. We also asked whether they needed to interfere with others to live according to sustainable development targets. A total of 6% of the answers were “definitely”, and 18% of them were “at every opportunity”. We did not propose any hypothesis about this dimension since we did not have enough information to make assumptions. The answers given indicate that voluntary behaviors are usually carried out only when appropriate.

7. Discussion

There has been a growing acceptance that sustainability should be incorporated into higher education to change students’ thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors on the subject [38,39]. Hales and Jennings [40] argue that for embedding sustainable development in higher education, improvements in educational practices are needed in terms of government-led incentives, socio-economic prospects of education, partnership platforms, and curricula. However, most higher education programs do not have the pedagogical perspective of socio-economic and environmental issues necessary to produce more reflexive practitioners [40]. As Thomas [39] stated, higher education should develop students’ abilities to assess environmental impacts, initiate and manage environmental change, identify important characteristics of the environment, adopt environmental values, and acquire knowledge about sustainable development while also developing their problem-solving skills. Education for sustainable development aims to enable individuals to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values to craft a sustainable future and include basic sustainable development issues in training and learning. It also requires participatory methods that motivate and support students to change their behavior and start initiatives regarding sustainable development. Therefore, education for sustainable development provides the acquisition of competencies such as critical thinking, imagining future scenarios, and collaborative decision-making [10,39]. Incorporating environmental awareness and sustainability, especially into sport management education, is crucial in shaping assumptions and promoting innovative strategies and options that advance environmental sustainability [41,42].

The road to sustainable development depends on awareness at all levels from bottom to top, i.e., the campus life to top management. The university itself is an organization and has decisive layers. Information, perspectives, and consciousness flow from the rectoral levels down to faculties and departments regarding the quality of teaching, research, and other related issues including campus life. Since the educational success of universities stands on the shoulders of academics, their knowledge and awareness are the keys to integrating sustainability issues into education. Accordingly, academics’ lack of knowledge and competencies are the main impeding factors in embedding sustainability subjects into the higher education system.

This research illustrates that education for sustainable development is not given much place in the universities in Türkiye. It is only reduced to elective-category courses, which are mostly not open due to a lack of instructors with sufficient knowledge levels and indifference of students. The fact that sports and sustainability are closely related gives rise to the assumption that sports academics are more sensitive to this issue. However, this study shows that the academicians in sport faculties do not have sufficient awareness of sustainability since universities do not force or train them in this regard. They often do not take initiative voluntarily, but, on the other hand, they are well aware that they need to get informed and that students need to be trained. Most of the sport academics in Turkish universities have a superficial understanding of sustainability limited to environmental issues and are mostly unaware that sustainability is a broader concept. Subjects such as gender, worker rights, sustainable cities, creating jobs/employment, etc., are not well realized. Furthermore, they have insufficient knowledge regarding the link between sport and sustainable development.

This study also highlights a lack of awareness and concern for sustainability at institutional levels at Turkish sport faculties. Despite the significance of individual perception, the sustainability concept additionally requires a holistic approach. It is recommended that sustainability issues be included in curricula, awareness be increased in all layers of institutions, and sustainability be implemented in the entire higher education system with projects, seminars, and on-campus events. Furthermore, academic staff should be provided with regular training on sustainable development, and sustainable development should be integrated into courses and programs. Overall, this study highlights the need for increased awareness and education concerning sustainable development in sports faculties and higher-education institutions.