Virtual Exchanges as Pedagogies for Transformative Sustainability Learning: A Critical Realist Multiple Case Study

The research study investigates how virtual exchanges can foster transformative learning for sustainability. To understand how VEs can foster or hinder transformative sustainability learning and identify the outcomes associated with the transformations, it explores two cases of VE using a multiple-case study methodology. The first case is a co-designed, comparative Collaborative Online International Learning exchange between two higher education institutions, one from the Philippines and another from Finland. The second case is a ready-made, dialogue-based VE designed as part of a parent research project involving 14 partner universities. Underpinned by a critical realist philosophy, this research uses a M/M approach, gathering data through semi-structured interviews with students and instructors, survey questionnaires, documentation, participant observation, and reflection journals to unearth the pedagogical approaches, learning conditions, and perceptions of students and instructors to provide a comprehensive understanding of the context, mechanisms, and outcomes of the virtual exchange. The findings demonstrate the transformative outcomes prompted by each virtual exchange, as well as the domains (cognitive, affective, behavioral, situated) that were activated in varying intensities, depending on the approach employed and the learning objectives. The study also presents eight mechanisms underlying pedagogies that aim to transform students or learners toward sustainable behavior and action. This study highlights the need for pedagogical practices that engage the various domains fundamental to transformative learning for sustainability education while considering the enabling mechanisms in terms of structure, culture, and agency within a social order. Doing so would enable HEIs to cultivate a culture of sustainability in their classrooms and adapt transformative, sustainability-oriented practices in various settings. The dissertation argues that initiatives to “green” the structures of universities should go hand-in-hand with pedagogies that “green” the mind through critical, trans-perspectival, and authentic learning strategies. In this way, universities, rather than being ivory towers of knowledge, could transform into bridges that bring together a pluriverse of ideas and actions towards a more sustainable way of living and being.