Teacher education as a catalyst for sustainable development: psychometric validation of a knowledge questionnaire for pre-service secondary teachers

Purpose This study aims to adapt and validate the Knowledge of Sustainable Development (KSD) questionnaire to measure sustainability knowledge among pre-service secondary teachers in Punjab, India. Design/methodology/approach This study used a quantitative design with stratified random sampling. Data came from 450 B.Ed. pre-service secondary teachers in Punjab, India. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted on 250 responses to improve the questionnaire, and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on another 200 responses to confirm its structure. Data were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics 26 and AMOS 23. Findings The revised questionnaire has 12 items covering social, environmental and economic aspects of sustainability knowledge. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the three-factor structure with good model fit (CFI = 0.94, TLI = 0.92 and RMSEA = 0.033). The instrument showed acceptable reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.707). Research limitations/implications Because this study included only pre-service secondary teachers in Punjab, the results of this study may not apply to other groups or regions. Practical implications Teacher education institutions can use this validated tool to assess sustainability knowledge, review ESD initiatives and guide curriculum development aligned with SDG 4 and NEP, 2020. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to validate the KSD questionnaire for Indian teacher education, offering a culturally adapted tool to assess sustainability knowledge in pre-service secondary teachers.