Secondary school teachers' knowledge, perceptions ...

Renewable Energy 62 (2014) 341e348

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Renewable Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Secondary school teachers’ knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes toward renewable energy in Jordan Anas Zyadin a, *, Antero Puhakka b, Pirkkoliisa Ahponen b, Paavo Pelkonen a a b

School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, 80101 Joensuu, Finland Department of Social Studies, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, 80101 Joensuu, Finland

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 4 December 2012 Accepted 17 July 2013 Available online

Successful energy planning requires substituting the standard economic model with a more transparent public participatory model because people play a fundamental role in climate change mitigation and renewable energy (RE) deployment. This approach requires improving communication with society and enabling smooth delivery of easy to digest information to citizens in both formal and informal educational settings. In this context, education and teachers, as the principal components, are recognized as one mechanism. We conducted a survey-based study, collecting 260 questionnaires from secondary school teachers in Jordan aiming to investigate their knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes toward RE development. The main findings of this study revealed that teachers have limited knowledge of RE and neutral perceptions regarding its use. However, teachers showed clear positive attitudes toward RE development. Overall, male teachers exhibited slightly higher knowledge of RE and female teachers held stronger positive attitudes. A number of socio-demographic and work related factors did not influence the teachers’ knowledge and attitudes toward RE. It was also found that teachers require personal training regarding RE before it is introduced into school curricula. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Renewable energy School teachers Attitudes Jordan

1. Introduction Humans have unquestionably entered the unprecedented Anthropocene era [1,2]. The restless endeavor to utilize fossil resources to mainly please the growth-addicted culture and supply the accompanying unfettered menu of “must-haves” of the average modern lifestyle has caused myopia and numbness toward serious ecological crises such as climate change [1]. The axis of climate change mitigation consists of a series of international treaties that have been ratified (e.g. The Kyoto protocol), proposed global energy governance [3], and recommended community-based adaptation measures [4]. However, these actions have been proven to be a remarkably insufficient and inefficient means to tackle the problem of accumulating CO2 emissions in the atmosphere [5,6]. From the shadows of this formidable global challenge, the idea of availing ourselves of renewable energy (RE) resources came to light and witnessed a noteworthy growth, standing at 16.7% in 2011 [7]. It has however been widely acknowledged that RE alone will not withstand the overwhelming and ever increasing demand for energy in the near future [8]. Furthermore, a recently concluded evaluative

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ358 443003228; fax: þ358 13 251 3629. E-mail addresses: [email protected], anas.zyadin@uef.fi (A. Zyadin). 0960-1481/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2013.07.033

study of several existing smart grid projects revealed that consumer acceptance and awareness is an indispensable pre-requisite of smart grid success [9]. A growing wealth of scholarly research therefore proposes reducing energy consumption through changing people’s behavior as an alternative to the standard economic model that only embraces financial incentives [10e12]. In this context, increasing public awareness in energy consumption often results in lower energy (mainly electricity) use [9]. For instance, a Dutch study concluded that “the more respondents thought they were capable of saving energy, the more energy they tended to save” [13]. Moreover, it was found that a 7.4% reduction in the national carbon emissions of the U.S. seems achievable through household actions without jeopardizing well-being [14]. In a recently published report by the European Energy Agency (EEA), the potential energy savings due to measures targeting behavior may reach up to 20% if certain interventions such as feedback and energy audits are deployed [15]. The aforementioned trends in energy consumption place greater emphasis on the role of education as a pre-requisite to successful energy policy through knowledge dissemination, community participation, and understanding the relationship between technology and human behavior [12,16,17]. In this regard, the importance of Environmental Education (EE) is gaining prominence around the world. It is regarded as an imperative tool with which to galvanize RE development [18,19]

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and cultivate public awareness of contemporary environmental issues. Environmental Education is a 50-year old discipline. It seeks to contribute to environmental sustainability through a diversity of practices from information dissemination to capacity building [20]. It targets young people and adults in formal and informal educational settings and strives to engage people in new ways of thinking and acting that ultimately create environmentally literate citizens [21,22]. Advancing education for sustainable development to empower people was a key recommendation of a high level panel report addressed to the UN Secretary-General on Global Sustainability [23]. Teachers are the principal component at the heart of education and the pedagogical process, and are thus the keystone of knowledge dissemination and enhancing societal acceptance of newly developed technologies. Teachers who are receptive and knowledgeable as regards RE will in turn assist young students to acquire proper knowledge and values regarding RE and its benefits to society and the environment [16,24]. In Academia, teachers’ attitudes toward a mosaic of environmental issues have received ample research emphasis. However, in the light of the global ecological challenges, teachers have become the subject of new research arenas concerning sustainable development (SD) [25,26] and, more recently, RE issues [16]. Findings from such research studies have accentuated some teacher’s misconceptions of SD and RE, despite them having a high level of interest in such issues [25e27]. Nevertheless, in spite of academic propensity, there is a paucity of research into the attitudes of teachers toward RE and the factors that influence these attitudes, such as socio-economics, bio-demographics, and the teacher’s personal teaching profile. Many of the Middle Eastern countries suffer between the hammer of asymmetric climate change (emitting the least but suffering the most) and the anvil of physical scarcity of potable water and horrendous energy prices [28,29]. The wind of change, resulting in the so called Arab Spring, unveiled some of the most formidable socio-economic and political challenges confronting the region. It also underscores the urgent need for a transparent and participatory approach to elevate public awareness of the adverse effects of climate change, and to change public attitudes toward old-fashioned energy and water consumption. Education in these countries has explicitly reduced illiteracy and the teacher remobilization program (e.g. from Jordan to the Gulf States) has contributed to the economies of both sides. However, in the Anthropocene era new pedagogical approaches to education, targeting adults and young people, are undoubtedly necessary to engage the public in the process of climate change mitigation, and to create new energy and water conscious citizens. 1.1. Jordan as a case study Jordan is small country located at the heart of the Middle East, in an area also called the Levant. Due mainly to high fossil fuel subsidies and energy dependence, Jordan suffers a mosaic of socioeconomic and political challenges. For instance, 96% of Jordan’s primary energy is in the form of imported fossil fuels, coming mainly from Iraq and Saudi Arabia [29]. Natural gas fuels 65e80% of the electricity generation, and it arrives in Jordan through a pipeline extending from the Egyptian Sinai desert. This supply has been halted 15 times due to bombing attacks after the ousting of the former Egyptian regime. The ultimate consequence for Jordan has been the exacerbation of internal and external debt to a threatening level. While political instability in the region continues, climate change, the energy crisis, and water shortage will place overwhelming pressure on the government to meet the future demands of the steadily growing population. However, in the light of

resource scarcity, the current policies may fail and societal opposition will thus pervade. This is of crucial significance to many relevant policies, such as those which aim at cutting the fossil fuel subsidies and encouraging public energy saving measures. More fortunately, on the other hand, Jordan is a very young country: about 33.8 percent of its population (7 million inhabitants) is aged 0e14 years, 62.4 percent are 15e64, while only 3.8 percent of the population is 65 years or older. At the time of writing, there are 6007 public and private schools, approximately 2.1 million students (including refugees), and almost 103 thousand teachers, with a ratio of 1 teacher to 16 students [30]. The education process has achieved a remarkable success in terms of annual number of graduates and reducing the illiteracy rate, however, teachers’ monthly wages are still one of the lowest when compared to other service sectors, and the education still does not encompass broader environmental issues. A study by Zyadin et al. [19] found that school students in Jordan have limited capability to distinguish between RE sources and non-renewable ones. The study also found that students have positive attitudes and propensity to adopt RE, although the students had some misperceptions of energy issues, e.g. regarding nuclear power. It is therefore vital to investigate the teachers’ knowledge and attitudes toward RE in order to develop a clearer understanding of the role of education, and to possibly identify disconnects between teachers and students. The aims of this study are: (1) to investigate the general RE knowledge of teachers and their capability to distinguish between renewable and non-renewable energy sources. (2) To investigate the teachers’ perceptions of RE implementation at the local level including any constraints. (3) To investigate the personal attitudes of teachers toward RE. (4) To investigate what teachers might need to ensure the integration of RE aspects in the school curricula or other relevant educational programs. The outcomes of this study will assist the education authorities in finding suitable means to integrate RE education into the schooling process. This study will provide policy makers in Jordan with insights and recommendations for future planning. This study is the first to address this issue in Jordan. Due to some socioeconomic, cultural, and demographic similarities, the research tool of this study can assist researchers in the surrounding countries to conduct similar studies. 2. Methodological approach During January to March 2012, the research group conducted a series of meetings to develop a survey tool for exploring the knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes of secondary school teachers toward RE in Jordan. A preliminary questionnaire, consisting of six subscales, was first developed in English and then translated into Arabic, with careful consideration given to the use of terms related to RE. After acquiring the necessary arrangements, twenty five hard copies were prepared and mailed to a high school for boys in Amman, with a letter addressed to the school principal requesting that only teachers of secondary grades fill in the questionnaire, and to also provide feedback on the overall structure of the questions presented in the questionnaire. The pre-test questionnaires were later received by post and checked for suitability. The pre-test questionnaires unveiled several complicated and misunderstood questions, related mainly to knowledge of RE. Accordingly, these questions were rephrased and the teachers who participated in the pre-test and their school were excluded from the population sample. By April 2012 the questionnaire was ready to be disseminated. Prior to questionnaire distribution, a formal letter was handed to the Ministry of Education in Amman requesting permission to access public and private schools in Jordan. The Ministry of


Education kindly provided permission in the form of formal correspondence to all education directorates in Jordan. These education directorates subsequently provided permission to access the schools under their jurisdiction. In order to cover the various conurbation types, the questionnaire was distributed in several contrasting geographical regions in Jordan. These included Amman, a predominately urban area, Al Salt city, a suburban area, and Al Karak city, a predominantly rural area. In addition, twenty questionnaires were collected from the Badia zone (a local expression for the desert-like areas occupied by Bedouins, with a total of approximately four hundred thousand inhabitants). The Badia is regarded as a low-income or poor-pocket zone, relying heavily on public services including public schooling systems, and with a higher illiteracy rate compared to urban areas. When considering the schooling systems, questionnaires were distributed separately to teachers working in public high schools for boys (male teachers) and public high schools for girls (female teachers) and in all the aforementioned geographical zones. Private mixed schools were also considered in this research attempt; however, such schools are profit-oriented and mainly established in urban areas with few in suburban and fewer still in rural areas. The questionnaire consisted of six different categories. The biographical category was devoted to the gender, age, and marital status of the teachers. The teaching profile of the teachers was reported in terms of teaching experience, weekly teaching load, educational field, and the highest educational level achieved by the teacher. A total of eight independent variables were tested for influence on the knowledge, perception, and attitude of the teachers toward RE. Nine different sources of energy were presented to gauge the knowledge of the teachers. The teachers were asked to determine whether each source is used in Jordan, whether it is available in Jordan, and whether it is renewable or not. The answer to the first and the second questions had to be either yes or no, while the answer to the third part is could be renewable, non-renewable, or I am not sure). The second part of the knowledge section of the questionnaire presented a table consisting of ten statements, with four possible answer options: True, False, not sure, never heard of. For perceptions, the questionnaire presented nine different statements in the form of a Likert-type scale as follows: (1) strongly agree, (2) agree, (3) not sure, (4) disagree, and (5) strongly disagree. The teachers’ self-assessment of RE knowledge was a Likerttype with the scale of answers arranged as follows: (1) good, (2) sufficient, (3) weak, and (4) not sure. The final question category was devoted to measure attitudes toward RE and consisted of two subclasses. Here, the first subclass introduced five statements with Likert-type scale statements to measure the personal attitudes of the teachers toward RE. The second subclass consisted of ten Likerttype scale statements to highlights the teachers’ needs to ensure successful RE education at the school level. The scale responding to the two subclasses were as follows: (1) strongly agree, (2) agree, (3) not sure, (4) disagree, and (5) strongly disagree. Soft copies are available from the corresponding author upon email request. 3. Results and discussion In total 260 (N ¼ 260) complete questionnaires were collected. The questionnaire participants comprised 146 men and 114 women. The respondents were classified by age: the majority, 104 (40%), were between 30 and 39 years old, 79 (30%) were between 20 and 29 years old and 58 (22%) were 40e49 years old. The remaining 19 participants (8%) were 50 years old or older. Based on the geographical distribution, the total number of responses from each area was 137 (53%) from rural areas, 84 (32%) from urban areas, 19 (7%) from suburban areas, and finally 20 responses (8%) from Badia areas,

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The socio-economic profiles of the teachers, revealed that 213 (82%) were married and 47 (18%) were single. Arguably, experience in teaching is also an important factor because inexperienced teachers may have not yet developed a concrete teaching style compared to their experienced counterparts who more fully appreciate the psychological behavior of their students. With 10year intervals, the teachers’ experience was categorized into three subclasses. In this study, 156 teachers (60%) had (1e10) years of teaching experience (TE), 72 of them (28%) had (11e20) years of TE, and 32 (12%) had 21 years of TE or more. The teaching load TL (the total number of weekly teaching hours) was categorized into two subclasses. The standard category is (10e20) hours per week, which is the TL of the majority of teachers in public and, to a lesser extent, private schools. In this study 210 (81%) teachers had standard TL. The high load category is where teaching hours exceeds 21 h per week; here we found 50 (19%) teachers with high load TL. The educational field of teachers is another crucial parameter, and science teachers may exhibit a better knowledge of RE compared to other teachers, for example humanities teachers [16]. Natural sciences teachers were the most common 109 (42%), followed by humanities at 84 (32%), computer science 21 (8%), vocational and religious education 18 (7%) each, and sports and music at 10 (4%). The educational level of the teachers was dominated by teachers holding a Bachelor’s degree 206 (80%), while the remaining 51 (19%) held either a society college diploma or a Master’s degree. In addition, 3 teachers (1%) held a doctoral degree. SPSS 19.0 was used for data analysis. Descriptive statistics and several non-parametric (Chi-square through cross tabulation and ManneWhitney tests) were deployed to highlight differences among the selected study variables. 3.1. The teachers’ general knowledge of RE This section is divided into two sub-sections. The first investigates RE use and availability in Jordan and the degree to which teachers can determine the nature of RE resources. The second subsection examines the general knowledge of RE, presenting various aspects of RE and two prominent global issues (energy demand and climate change). 3.1.1. RE nature, use and availability in Jordan Table 1 demonstrates some misconceptions regarding the use and availability of energy sources in Jordan. 68% of teachers said that wind energy is used in Jordan, while in reality only a few demonstration sites for wind turbines have been installed [31]. Hydropower sources are also very limited in Jordan, with only two small scales operational projects that together account for only 0.3% of the total electricity generation [31]. Nevertheless, 44% of teachers indicated that hydropower is being used in Jordan. A similar misconception was found for the use of geothermal energy, which currently sees only very limited use, mainly in green house heating and fish farms, making virtually no contribution to the national energy mix [32]. It seems that teachers are only correctly aware of solar power use, since Solar Water Heater (SWH) is widely used in the domestic context in Jordan [31]. Almost one-quarter of the teachers thought oil and natural gas are not used in Jordan, while 84% and 44% of teachers indicated the use of firewood and coal respectively. Almost one-tenth of the teachers thought that nuclear power is currently used in Jordan, although it has never been used for power generation, and there is only one small reactor, mainly for educational purposes, currently in construction at the campus of the Jordan University of Science and Technology. Teachers also hold misconceptions regarding the availability of energy sources. For example, solar and wind power are technically

344


Table 1 The teachers’ knowledge of the use and availability of various energy sources in Jordan. Energy source

Solar Nuclear Wind Coal Firewood Hydro Natural gas Oil Geothermal a b

Use ina Jordan

Availableb in Jordan

Renewability of energy sources

Yes %

No%

Yes%

No%

Renewable (%)

Non-renewable (%)

Not sure (%)

82 9 68 36 84 44 78 84 18

18 91 32 64 16 56 22 16 82

98 36 91 50 73 56 44 25 56

2 64 9 50 27 44 56 75 44

98 29 94 11 33 88 12 8 56

1 49 3 75 59 6 78 84 22

1 22 3 14 8 6 10 8 22

Use: refer to the large scale use of the source at the local level. Availability: refer to the local availability of the source raw material and for commercial use.

the only available resources for commercial use. Teachers’ perceptions of the availability of nuclear power were probably based on the frequent media announcements made by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) regarding the uranium discovery (yellow cake) in the southeast of Jordan. Similar misconceptions were found regarding the availability of fossil fuel resources (oil, natural gas (NG), and coal), since these resources, so far, are not available on commercial scale, although British Petroleum have showed an interest in conducting geological surveys to assess NG potential in the North of Jordan. The conception of the renewability of the energy sources is also an insightful indicator of knowledge. Some 22% of teachers appeared confused as to the nature of nuclear power and geothermal energy. Teachers appeared to be aware of the nature of the common renewable sources i.e. solar, wind, and hydro. On the other hand, we found misconceptions regarding the nature of hydrocarbons, especially coal. The same result was also noted for school students in Jordan [19]. This is to be expected because teachers receive no RE education at the graduate level, the school curricula do not sufficiently cover these issues, and teachers receive no external training assistance. 3.1.2. The teachers’ knowledge of technical aspects of RE Table 2 demonstrates the frequency of response to ten statements, of which three statements were intentionally falsified (item 5, 7, and 9). Apparently, teachers appeared well acquainted with the aspects of the common RE sources; namely, solar, wind, and geothermal (item 1, 3, and 4). However, a clear uncertainty about Photovoltaics and biodiesel was found (item 2 and 5 respectively). Although 16% of the teachers were not sure, they showed considerable knowledge of processing municipal waste to bio-gas (item 6). Statement seven is very crucial indicator of the public awareness of the energy outlook in Jordan, indeed, teachers appeared unaware of the fact that 96% of primary energy is imported. Similar

misconceptions were also found in responses to the firewood statement (item 8). More than two-thirds of the teachers disagreed with the falsified statement regarding the global demand (item 9), whereas approximately 20% found it difficult to do so. Nonetheless, teachers appeared well informed as regards the interplay of carbon emissions and climate change (item 10). Although teachers appeared to be well acquainted with the common renewable resources (solar and wind), they appeared to be unaware or uncertain about many aspects such as technology, bio-waste reuse, and global and local energy prospects. Furthermore, it was found that 77% of school teachers (mainly males) own a computer at home, 41% of which are connected to the internet, replicating a finding of a national survey conducted by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MoICT) in Jordan [33]. The same survey found that teachers use online computers to search for teaching materials related to their topics and for downloading teaching programs. To retrieve deeper insights of the teachers’ RE knowledge, the knowledge statements were cross tabulated with several biodemographic variables (gender, marital status, age, place of residence) and the work profile characteristics (teaching experience, education level, educational background, and TL). Only one significant gender-specific difference was found, and that was for the “biodiesel” item (item 5), where 41% of female teachers were “not sure” compared to 21% of male teachers (p ¼ 0.021). Age categories showed only significant difference for the “PV” item (item 2), where older teachers appeared least sure about the answer (p ¼ 0.008). The education level variable showed that teachers who hold community college diplomas were least sure about the “wind turbines” and “hotsprings” statements (item 3 and 4), with slight significant difference (p ¼ 0.041) and (p ¼ 0.046) respectively. The marital status and place of residence variables showed no significant influence. The second set of variables (the work profile, the teachers’ teaching

Table 2 The teachers’ general knowledge of renewable energy and contemporary issues: descriptive statistic. Knowledge statement

1. Solar water heater is used to collect solar waves and heat up the water for household use. 2. Photovoltaic is an advanced technology used to convert solar waves to electricity. 3. Wind turbine is an example of converting wind energy to electricity. 4. Hotsprings are form of geothermal energy. 5. Biodiesel is a fuel produced from plant oils only. 6. Municipal sewage wastes can be processed to produce bio-gas. 7. (50%) of primary energy production in Jordan is through imported fossil fuels. 8. Firewood is a main source of energy in many developing countries. 9. The global energy demand is projected to decrease in the future. 10. CO2 emissions-from burning fossil fuel- is one cause of climate change.

Frequencies True (%)

False (%)

Not sure (%)

Never heard of (%)

Mode

98 57 93 87 10 75 64 59 19 90

1 4 2 4 48 5 11 24 67 2

1 15 4 8 31 16 23 15 14 7

0 24 1 1 11 4 2 2 0 1

True True True True False True True True False True


experience and TL) did not reveal any significant influence. However, the educational field variable revealed that the religious-studies, computer science, and literature teachers were least sure about the PV, wind turbine, and biodiesel statements (item 2, 3, and 5 respectively). Similar trends in the teachers’ RE knowledge and gender differences were also previously reported [16]. 3.2. The teachers’ perceptions of RE As shown in Table 3, teachers perceived RE as a vital approach to energy independence and economic growth (item 1 and 2), this demonstrates that teachers are acquainted with the commonly proposed benefits of RE. However, they also perceive the obstacles that hinder large scale RE development in Jordan differently, whether these obstacles are actually valid or not. Almost 60% and 78% strongly agree and agree that RE is expensive to deploy, accompanied by the shortage of local expertise (item 3 and 6 respectively). Based on their perceptions, 70% and 85% of teachers strongly agree and agree to the use of nuclear energy (item 4) and oil shale (item 5) respectively. This is probably due to the intensive media news regarding the discovery of commercial uranium and oil shale in the southeast of Jordan. In some energy-related documents, land availability for large scale RE development was deemed a hurdle to RE, however 47% of teachers strongly disagreed and disagreed because vast set-aside and desert areas are available. Regarding some global issues, 44% of teachers were not sure regarding the debate on bioethanol (item 8). Furthermore, 70% of teachers strongly disagreed and disagreed to the forest biomass-based energy production (item 9). This is probably a self-evaluative perception since most of teachers are not aware of the forest’s status in the world, and that the mini patches of forest in Jordan posit the notion of forest protection. The teachers’ unpretentious knowledge has developed some critical perceptions of RE development and created a chasm between their preferences and their personal beliefs, which in turn pre-empted teachers from developing clear positions toward RE development [16]. We conducted a ManneWhitney test to reveal noteworthy statistical significant differences among the study variables. The test showed that teachers from urban areas exhibited criticism towards RE development as an expensive strategy (item 3) and thus had a tendency to support nuclear power (item 4), whilst teachers from rural areas had greater support for oil shale exploitation (item 5) (z ¼ 8.626, p < 0.05). The oil shale discovery and the planned investment for utilization were perceived as bringing wealth and employment opportunities to rural areas, therefore gaining support from teachers in such areas. 3.3. The teachers’ self-assessment of their RE knowledge It is not very common practice in academia to ask teachers how they personally evaluate their knowledge. However, this approach

345

Table 4 The teachers’ self-assessment of their RE knowledge: (Mode ¼ Sufficient; Mean ¼ 2.15; S.D ¼ 1024; N ¼ 260).

frequencies.

Level of knowledge

Frequency

Percentage (%)

Good Sufficient Weak I am not sure

83 90 51 36

32 35 20 13

allows comparing the teachers’ measured level of knowledge and the teacher’s personal evaluation. As measured above, the teachers had a modest level of RE knowledge and the same trend was found in their personal evaluation (Table 4). Notably, 31% of the teachers evaluated their knowledge to be weak or being not sure. This share of teachers is indeed remarkable and mirrors the modest knowledge status of RE at the school level. In a study by Zyadin et al. [19], school students were asked to self-assess their knowledge of RE. The study showed that approximately 66% of students considered themselves exhibiting “good to very good” knowledge of RE. This indicates a knowledge gap or disconnect between teachers and students, and shows that students acquire knowledge from other sources. Finally, A ManneWhitney test was deployed to reveal any statistical significant differences for the selected study variables. The test revealed no statistically significant differences regarding teachers’ perceptions. 3.4. The teachers’ personal attitudes toward RE In this section we examined the personal attitudes of the teachers towards RE. Table 5 shows the response frequencies to the five statements. Although they have modest knowledge of RE, teachers exhibited generally positive attitudes toward RE: over 80% of them strongly agreed or agreed to pay more to receive clean energy at home and to work voluntarily in elevating public awareness of RE benefits (item 1 and 2). A substantial number (89%) of teachers strongly agreed or agreed to install solar water heaters (SWH) at home. This is mainly due to the fact that SWH is a simple application to utilize solar energy and is widely used across the country. The public recognizes the benefits of SWH compared to electric heaters for example. Similarly, a remarkable 86% of teachers strongly agreed or agreed to drive electric cars. However, it is valuable from a research perspective, to realize the motivation behind such attitudes. Although one-quarter of teachers showed no interest in RE, the majority were interested. The key message which arose from this investigation is that an increase in knowledge does not necessarily translate into positive attitudes nor lead to proenvironmental behavior [34]. We used ManneWhitney and Kruskal Wallis tests to unveil noteworthy statistical differences for the various socio-demographic

Table 3 The teachers’ perception of RE from socio-economic and global perspectives: Frequencies of responses. Perceptions statements

Strongly agree (%)

Agree (%)

Not sure (%)

Disagree (%)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

70 72 27 37 50 36 8 15

26 26 32 33 35 42 24 24

3 2 23 13 12 10 21 44

1 0 15 14 2 11 40 15

0 0 3 3 1 1 7 2

5

13

12

30

40

Developing RE in Jordan will create energy independence in the long-run Growth in RE sector can enhance economic growth in Jordan RE utilization is currently an expensive economic strategy in Jordan Nuclear power plant deemed viable energy option for Jordan in the next ten years The discovered oil shale resources will be the future of energy production in Jordan The lack of local experts may hinder the large scale development of RE in Jordan RE development require large land area The production of biofuels (such as bioethanol) from agricultural crops may create food crisis in some developing countries 9. In some developed countries, part of energy is commercially produced from forest biomass incineration. This type of energy production is environmentally friendly

Strongly disagree (%)

Mode S. agree S. agree Agree S. agree S. agree Agree Disagree Not sure S. disagree

346


Table 5 The teachers’ attitudes toward renewable energy: Descriptive statistics. Attitudes statements

Strongly agree (%)

Agree (%)

Not sure (%)

1. I am willing to pay more to receive clean energy at my home 2. I would like to work voluntarily to raise public awareness of renewable energy in Jordan 3. I would like to install a solar water heater at my home 4. In future, I would like to drive a car that runs by electricity instead of gasoline 5. Renewable energy is, indeed, not of my interest

42 33

43 47

9 12

5 6

1 2

Agree Agree

60 58

29 28

9 10

1 3

1 1

S. Agree S. Agree

8

16

5

44

27

Disagree

characteristics and the work profile variables. Place of residence had no significant influence on the teacher’s attitudes toward RE. A significant difference between the genders was only found for the willingness to install SWT at home (item 3), where female teachers showed higher scoring (z ¼ 2.325, p < 0.05) compared to male teachers. A clear significant difference in the “willingness to pay” (item 1) was found single and married teachers, where single teachers scored higher, meaning that they were more willing to pay for RE (z ¼ 2.764, p < 0.05), compared to married teachers. The TL showed no significant effect on the teacher’s attitudes. The results showed that teachers with graduate degree (Master’s and PhDs) were more willing to install SWH (item 3) with (z ¼ 2.484, p < 0.05). Where we had three or more independent variables, we used the Kruskal Wallis test. The age of the participant teachers had no significant effect on their attitudes toward RE. Amount of teaching experience and the teacher’s educational field also had no significant influence on attitude toward RE. Overall, female teachers had a slightly more positive attitude toward RE, although it was not statistically significant for most of the proposed statements. Previous research showed that in general females are slightly more inclined to save energy [11,35]. Since most of the selected variables showed no explicit influence on attitudes toward RE, it is therefore valuable, from a research prospective, to address other potentially significant explanatory factors such as income, household type, home ownership, family size, social norms, personal values, and political orientation. 3.5. Pre-requisites of teachers for successful RE education at schools Table 6 presents ten statements designed to examine what the teacher feels is necessary to successfully enhance RE education in classrooms. Surprisingly, the teachers agreed to all the presented statements, albeit with a distinctive bias toward statements six and seven. Half of teachers felt they weren’t knowledgeable enough to teach students about RE, while 40% of them felt they were and 10%

Disagree (%)


Mode

were uncertain. This finding corresponds to our findings in the knowledge section and in the self-assessment approach described above, where the majority of teachers were found to have a modest knowledge of RE. Statements two, three, and four are therefore a natural reflection of statement one. More precisely, the teachers’ positive attitudes toward RE accompanied by their limited knowledge encouraged 90% of them to strongly agree or agree to learn more about RE (item 3). Secondly, 86% requested better teaching materials and correspondingly 80% requested further training. This is indicative of the lack of sufficient RE related information in the school curricula and there is little evidence that teachers receive supplementary information regarding RE during their college education. Our finding, to a large extent, corresponds to the study conducted by Liarakou et al. [16] in Greece, where 74% and 82% of secondary school teachers expressed a need for training and flexible educational materials regarding RE respectively. A large proportion of teachers (77%) also expressed the need for inviting external expertise (item 5), which reflects those teachers’ positive attitude toward RE while also demonstrating a fundamental lack of capability to effectively deliver RE education. Schools typically organize a few entertainment excursions for students around spring time every year; however, no educational excursions are planned throughout the rest of the year. The majority of teachers (90%) explicitly showed a remarkable interest in educational excursions to RE demo sites scattered around the country. Since this approach requires devotion and financial support, an assigned teacher may therefore receive fiscal support for planning such an excursion. Another key challenge to teachers is the lack of time within the school semester to retrieve and deploy external information, since completing the designated curriculum is a mandatory task for each teacher. Nonetheless, 18% of teachers said that they might have time to engage in extra-curricular activities. These teachers were the literature and vocational teachers, who generally have a lesser teaching load compared to their counterparts in natural sciences. Nevertheless, RE education remains

Table 6 The teachers’ requirements to enhance RE education in classrooms. Descriptive statistics. Attitudes statements

Strongly agree (%)

Agree (%)

Not sure (%)

Disagree (%)


Mode

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

15 23 41 36 27

35 57 49 50 50

10 5 5 7 9

34 13 4 7 12

6 2 1 0 2

Agree Agree Agree Agree Agree

48 38 41 20

42 36 42 35

5 8 7 15

4 16 9 22

1 2 1 8

S. agree S. agree Agree Agree

34

49

12

3

2

Agree

I feel I do not have enough knowledge to teach RE related topics to my student I need further training to develop my skills in teaching RE aspects to my students I would like to learn more about RE I need a better teaching materials related to RE I need to invite experts from (university, company, etc.) to teach my students about RE 6. I need financial resources to take students for excursions to RE pilot-projects 7. I have no time to teach my students topics outside the required curricula 8. I recommend developing RE curricula to be taught separately for students 9. I think parents are more important than teachers in helping students to become energy conscious 10. I think there are opportunities to include topics related to RE in the present school curricula


ostensibly under the mantle of the natural sciences. A large proportion (83%) of teachers would evidently highly recommend developing a separate curriculum for students (item 8) since time and knowledge are seen as limiting factors of effective RE education at schools. A similar proportion of teachers strongly believe that RE can be accommodated in the present school curricula (item 10). Item nine is a socio-cultural statement which is the subject of heated debate both among teachers and in the wider society. A couple of decades ago, teachers were more powerful both within and outside classrooms, not just in terms of teaching, but also to control misbehavior, a position which received enormous support from society, particularly in rural areas. More recently, this aspect of the role of teachers has been diminishing, probably due to societal structural and socio-economic changes in the Jordan. As a result, some 55% of teachers strongly agreed or agreed that parents are more important than teachers in elevating awareness of energy and environmental issues among students. Nevertheless, 30% of teachers strongly disagreed and disagreed to such a proposition and 15% remained unsure. 4. Conclusions The objectives of this survey study were to investigate the knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes of secondary school teachers toward RE sources in a country which suffers from a chronic fossilenergy crisis despite being endowed with enormous renewable energy potential. This study also endeavored to investigate the requirements of the teachers to convey effective messages to their students in order to strengthen the role of education in creating environmentally literate and energy conscious generations. Based on the aforementioned results, the education authorities in Jordan are strongly encouraged to consider elevating teachers’ knowledge of RE through developing comprehensive, yet simplified and readable RE education materials in the form of a short manual. This will allow teachers to get better acquainted with RE benefits before ultimately disseminating this knowledge to students. Conducting localized workshops or short-term training courses moderated by invited experts might also be beneficial. A quick search on the internet has retrieved a number of ready-made manuals which could be used immediately [36]. While male teachers are probably more politically aware, female teachers have more concern for the socio-economic outlook of their families, assiduously seeking methods of energy saving. In fact, during the data collection, female teachers were noted to be more curious about RE than male teachers, and also addressed many questions about the costs and benefits of RE technologies and knew the contact details of some local energy companies. The education authorities are therefore encouraged to pay special attention to female teachers by conducting household best-practice workshops, with special focus on simple RE technology such as SWHs. Through the organized workshops (in both formal and informal environments), teachers from various schools and educational fields could be assisted and encouraged to conduct a constructive debate on how RE is best planted in the classrooms and how to elicit discussions with students on various energy and environmental issues. In the longer term, universities may develop and enact a mandatory course for pre-service school teachers to ensure teachers are equipped with a satisfactory level of RE knowledge. When teachers utilize RE technologies in their homes and start to enjoy the benefits, they will develop resultant positive attitudes toward RE and will thus endeavor to convey such positive experience to students and ultimately to society. It is, therefore, wise planning to help teachers get the necessary fiscal support to install RE such as SWT at home. The government may guarantee loans for interested teachers, or find room for financial support to be granted

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to the Teacher’s Association through which teachers can acquire the necessary support to buy SWT eased by monthly installments. For policy makers, successful energy planning requires patience and public participation, especially when policies directly affect livelihoods. For politicians and bureaucrats, a transparent environment that aims to create political trust is a pre-requisite for any future planning. The use of public referenda on relevant matters such as nuclear power, the increase in frequency of awareness and energy saving outreach projects and establishing household best-practices workshops for rural housewives are just few approaches to be considered. The wind of change of the so called Arab Spring is said to be one outcome of political distrust and “head in the sand” policy making. Acknowledgment The authors are indebted to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. The authors also wishes to extend their sincere appreciation for the generous funding received from North Karelia Regional Fund to conduct this study. Financial support for traveling was also granted from the Graduate School of Forest Sciences at the University of Eastern Finland (GSforest). The Authors are greatly thankful to the Ministry of Education in Jordan for providing access to public and private schools and the school teachers who participated in this study. References [1] Slaughter RA. Welcome to the Anthropocene. Futures 2012;44:119e26. [2] Editorial. Meeting the challenges of the Anthropocene: towards a science of coupled humanebiophysical systems. Global Environmental Change 2007;17: 149e51. [3] Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen SI, Jollands N, Staudt L. Global governance for sustainable energy: the contribution of a global public goods approach. Ecological Economics 2012;83:11e8. [4] Ayers J, Anderson S, Pradhan S, Rossing T. Participatory monitoring, evaluation, reflection and learning for community-based adaptation: a manual for local practitioners. CARE International; 2012. [5] Vihma A, Asselt HV. Great expectations: understanding why the UN climate talks seem to fail. FIIA Briefing Paper 109, http://www.fiia.fi/en/publication/ 270/; 2012. [6] Macy A. The road to Durban and beyond: the progress of international climate change negotiations. Policy Quarterly 2012;8(2):23e8. [7] REN21. Renewable energy policy network for the 21st century. Renewables 2012: global status report. http://www.ren21.net/default.aspx?tabid¼5434; 2012. [8] IEA (International Energy Agency). Tracking clean energy progress, at the third clean energy ministerial. www.iea.org/papers/2012/Tracking_Clean_Energy_ Progress.pdf; 2011. [9] Mulder W, Kumpavat K, Faasen C, Verheij F, Vaessen P. Global inventory and analysis of smart grid demonstration projects. The Netherlands: DNV KEMA Energy & Sustainability; 2012. http://www.kema.com/nl/Images/DNV% 20KEMA%20Report%20Global%20Inventory%20and%20Analysis%20of% 20Smart%20Grid%20Demonstration%20Projects.pdf. [10] Owens S, Driffill L. How to change attitudes and behaviours in the context of energy. Energy Policy 2008;36:4412e8. [11] Martinsson J, Lundqvist LJ, Sundström A. Energy saving in Swedish households. The (relative) importance of environmental attitudes. Energy Policy 2011;39:5182e91. [12] Kok G, Lo SH, Peters GY, Ruiter RA. Changing energy-related behavior: an intervention mapping approach. Energy Policy 2011;39:5280e6. [13] Abrahamse W, Steg L. How do socio-demographic and psychological factors relate to household’s direct and indirect energy use and savings? Journal of Economic Psychology 2009;30:711e20. [14] Dietza T, Gardnerb GT, Gilliganc J, Stern PC, Vandenberghe MP. Household actions can provide a behavioral wedge to rapidly reduce US carbon emissions. PNAS 2009;106(44):18452e6. [15] EER (European Environment Agency). Achieving energy efficiency through behaviour change: what does it take?. Copenhagen: Denmark; 2013. EEA Technical report No 5/2013. [16] Liarakou G, Gavrilakis C, Flouri E. Secondary school teachers’ knowledge and attitudes towards renewable energy sources. Journal of Science Education and Technology 2008;18:120e9. [17] Sovacool BK. Rejecting renewables: the socio-technical impediments to renewable electricity in the United States. Energy Policy 2009;37: 4500e13.

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