Energy Literacy: Review of Knowledge, Attitude, and Behavior of Middle School Students in the City of Orumiyeh

Abstract

Energy literacy is essential in decisions related to energy and energy application in our daily lives, and various levels of knowledge and awareness about energy can affect on the activities and personal and social decisions. The aim of this study is investigating energy literacy of the middle school students. The research method is descriptive-survey. The study population consisted of all male and female middle school students in the city of Orumiyeh (35835). This study applied random cluster sampling. According to Morgan and Krejcie table (1970), a sample of 380 subjects (199 boys and 181 girls) were selected from among all students in Urmia city. The data collection tool is the energy literacy questionnaire provided by DeWaters, Graham and Powers (2013) that professors and experts have confirmed its validity. Cronbach's alpha established the reliability of questionnaire and obtained in the three domains of cognitive, affective and behavioral respectively, 0.71, 0.75 and 0.76. Data collected from the survey were analyzed using independent samples <em>t</em>-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson correlation coefficient. Results of the survey questions indicated that the cognitive scores of students were lower than the affective and behavioral scores. Findings also indicate that relationship between cognitive-affective aspects and affective -behavioral aspects was positive and significant, but the relationship between the cognitive-behavioral aspects was not significant. Evaluate the performance of students based on age and gender showed that girls and boys in cognitive scores were significantly different, but there was no significant difference between genders in affect and behavior. The difference between the average scores of Seventh and eighth grades, eighth and ninth grades were significant. Eighth-grade students had better performance than seventh and eighth grades.<br /> <strong> </strong>