An experiment on the factors affecting the awareness score of autism - a case study among UiTM Seremban students / Muhammad Uzeirrahimi Mohamad, Aini Lateefa Shahrol Azman and Nurul Farhana Jaafar

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a complex neurobehavioral condition that includes problems with social intercourse, language development, repetitive behaviours and communicative skills. Autism is not a newly found subject of discussion but most of the people do not know deeply on the topic. The people often misunderstand autism which will lead to significant problems such as isolation, bullying and many more.
Hence, this research aims to raise awareness on autism which uses a Three Factorial Randomized Complete Block Design experiment design with longitudinal survey on 72 students from Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Negeri Sembilan Kampus Seremban. The first objective is to compare the awareness score of autism before and after the experiment by using dependent t-test. The second objective is to determine if there is any significant interaction between genders, faculties and methods of message delivery on awareness of autism by using analysis of variance. This research has found that there is a significant difference on the mean awareness score of autism before and after the experiment which means the experiment was effective on raising the awareness on autism. Besides that, this research has found that the three factor and two factor interactions are not significant on the awareness of autism. However, methods and gender alone are significant in explaining the factors affecting awareness score on autism. Based on the results, female are more aware of autism than male before the experiment. Other than that, the best method of message delivery found to be effective in spreading the awareness of autism is article. Video and audio shows second and third respectively in the effectiveness of spreading awareness of autism.