Assessing graduate sustainability capability post-degree completion: Why is it important and what are the challenges?

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight both the need for measurement of graduate capabilities post-degree completion and the challenges posed by such a task. Higher education institutions provide an important site of learning that can equip future professionals with capabilities to manage and respond to complex sustainability challenges in their careers. Measurement of graduate uptake and application of sustainability capabilities is an important part of advancing sustainability curriculum and pedagogy to educate the twenty-first century sustainability capable graduates. Design/methodology/approach: This paper explores the nature of capabilities and reviews existing approaches to capability assessment. Findings: The nature of capabilities and their assessment post-degree completion pose a number of challenges for the development of assessment and measurement tools, which is why sustainability capability assessment methods are deserving of specific research attention. Research limitations/implications: The assessment and application of capability in graduates' professional contexts are an important part of closing the loop between learning and teaching in higher education and professional application of this learning. It is imperative that more research be undertaken on the methodology of graduate assessment, given the need to understand graduate learning outcomes as they apply in professional settings for graduate employability, promoting sustainability and developing effective sustainability pedagogy. Practical implications: Given that there is significant overlap between employability skills, generic graduate attributes and sustainability capabilities, this paper has relevance beyond the measurement of sustainability capability to the measurement of uptake and professional application of generic capabilities more broadly. Social implications: The measurement of graduate capability offers potential to enhance learni