Energy conservation: awareness analysis among secondary school students

Without any intervention, Malaysia will be among the heaviest users of energy per capita in Asia. One strategy to reduce energy intensity is by educating future adults. Unfortunately, ineffective approaches due to unclear baseline understanding of students' energy conservation awareness contribute to the failure of environmental protection programmes. In this study, questionnaire was used to investigate the awareness level of secondary school students on energy conservation, with socio-demographic profile as an independent variable. Three secondary schools in Malaysia were selected based on different recognition types, namely; a High Performance School, Cluster School and an ordinary Daily School. The findings (N = 927) revealed a low level of knowledge among the students from all types of school with acceptable level of positive attitude and practice towards energy conservation. These findings serve as a wake-up call to implement a comprehensive energy policy and a new environmental education curriculum with community participation. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2022.2031902 .