Peer learning methodology for sustainable energy usage

Abstract

Humanity must be aware of the possibilities for sustainable energy technologies from their childhood onwards in order to enable a clean and prosperous future. Until now, youth receives only limited and mostly theoretical knowledge about new forms of energy usage, which leaves open doors to the usage of conventional energy sources. It is vital that youth develops a solid understanding of renewable energy’s power and its various possible applications, thereby taking into account. Currently, youth are getting increasingly used to learn through transactional forms of communication via their (online) media consumption behaviour and contact with peers through social media. Considering these new communication forms, this study examines if peer-learning methodology (PLM) is an efficient method to train children in increasing their practical knowledge of sustainable energy usage. Nowadays, PLM is used as an educational methodology based on an eclectic integration of multiple theoretical insights from different scientific disciplines, such as developmental psychology, education science and paediatrics, that might be an effective learning methodology. The main idea behind PLM is that in order to educate youth effectively, a communication must motivate the receiver to actively attend to messages and perceive and interpret their content that is provided by peers, include iterative and transactional solicitation of feedback, and activate elaboration of message arguments and counterarguments to encourage individuals to move through the process of learning. In the current study, we investigated how students learn from other peers that have made posters that reflect on new and sustainable forms of energy. In total 14 posters and four movies were shown during an exhibition in both Ankara (Turkey) and in Tilburg (the Netherlands). During the exhibition, 30 pairs of students in Ankara and 12 pairs of students in Tilburg were equipped with a GoPro and they should talk about the exhibition according to the think aloud method. This data will be recoded afterwards by trained researchers in order to establish participants responses.