Intrinsic motivation, knowledge and perceived self-efficacy in ESD in primary teaching education

This paper evaluates a seminar concept for „Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in social studies and sciene in primary school“, which was developed in the project BNEprimus. Due to the lack of empirical findings on the development of prospective primary school teachers’ (self-assessed) knowledge, intrinsic motivation and perceived self-efficacy in ESD, these competencies were measured before and after participation in the seminar. Prospective primary school teachers’ professionalisation processes were tested in a quasi-experimental pre-post design (NESD group = 82, Ncontrol group = 40). Subjects who participated in the ESD seminar achieved significantly higher scores in knowledge, intrinsic motivation, and self-efficacy regarding ESD than those who did not participate in the ESD seminar.