LEARNING AND ATTITUDE CHANGE AT BRITISH NUCLEAR FUEL'S SELLAFIELD VISITORS CENTRE

Abstract

Knowledge of and attitude towards nuclear power were measured in a before/after evaluation study of Sellafield Visitors Centre. The attitude scale was broken down into its component factors using a Principal Components Analysis with orthogonal rotation. Five factors were extracted and these were interpreted as: (a) economic and technical; (b) health and safety; (c) emotional; (d) environmental; (e) passive acceptance. These factors were then analysed in ANOVAs to assess changes due to the Visitor Centre by gender, age and previous education. A verbal knowledge questionnaire was also administered before/after and analysed with similar ANOVAs but with the attitudinal factors included as covariates. It was found that knowledge increased significantly across all categories of visitor. In attitude measures, the environmental and the economic and technical factors changed positively but although health and safety changed positively for men—it changed negatively for women. The emotional factor changed negatively for the younger visitors and did not change positively for any of the demographic groupings. The knowledge questionnaire, together with a pictorial knowledge test, were compared with a behavioural mapping measure to explore the properties of displays that contribute most to learning.