Background

The goal of The Great American Energy Debate program is to quadruple the level of energy knowledge of all high school graduates by the year 2020. During the next two schools years the level of students’ energy knowledge and opinions will be determined. The Energy Focus Group (TEFG)is one of the measurement tools being utilized to establish an energy knowledge benchmark. It’s also a great activity to accompany the National Student Energy Survey and get students thinking about energy.

Participate in National Student Energy Survey

The fourteen National Student Energy Survey(NSES) questions are the basis of The Energy Focus Group activity. You can still conduct the focus group without participating in the survey by using the current national results from this school year’s survey instead of your own school’s results. The TEFG Power Point presentation already contains the current national results.

Register for the National Student Energy Survey by going to the TGAED website. Teachers receive a school code that students use to take the on-line survey. The 14 NSES questions take about 8-10 minutes to complete. School leaders can run countless reports with their school’s data.

Click here to register for NSES.

Conducting the Focus

If all fourteen questions are being examined during the focus group then a minimum of 60 minutes will be needed. If time is a problem you can always limit discussion on some or all of the questions. A 90 minute period works best.  The 45 minute workshop version of the Energy Focus Group contains seven of the fourteen questions.

A team of four students will be needed to conduct the focus group . The two student facilitators play a big role. Video and written instructions will help student facilitators conduct the questioning. Instructions will also help students acquire some helpful tools as well as questioning techniques to get members of the group talking.

Facilitators, recorders, and teachers will need to meet before the focus group session(s) to review procedures and tasks. The post session meeting will be to summarize student comments and opinions.

Click here for TEFG Facilitator Instructions.

Reporting Your Students Energy Education Data

If you wish to have what your students know and think about energy be part of the national assessment then there are two reporting areas methods you can utilize. We’d like you to use both. If you don’t want to report the information for national compilation then keep it for you own use to measure against in future years.

The first reporting tool is having two of your student leaders complete the TEFG Recording Sheet. The TEFG Recording Sheet helps the recorders organize themselves using a uniform format that will be used for an anticipated 30 focus groups. Written and video instructions will provide recorders with helpful hints for capturing student comments and then summarizing them on the TEFG Recording Sheet.

The second reporting method are interviews before and after the focus group session with the student leader abd/or teacher. The first telephone interview will be about 2-3 minutes and the second interview will be after the focus group session and last between 6-8 minutes. National TEFG results will be compiled and released in September 2012.

Click here for TEFG Recorder Sheet.

Click here for the 45 minute workshop TEFG Recorder Sheet.