A “path” for enhancement of engineering enrollments: Attitudes toward energy concepts

Through initial development, validation, and analysis of response data from an instrument designed to concurrently assess the attitudes of secondary school students towards energy concepts and several other select science-related topical areas, a factor analytic path model was generated. Several statistically significant direct correlations were identified betwen the energy concepts topical area and environmental issues, science concepts, and metrication topical areas, along with a significant inverse correlation with the nuclear energy topical area. A high association betwen the energy concepts topical area and a major "proximal" factor was also identified, and may represent a feeling of the participants\´ personal involvement in issues perceived by them to relate to "energy concepts". It is hoped that consideration of these identified attitudinal relationships by educators during curriculum planning and daily classroom activities would assist in the promotion of scientifically literate general public