Modern Biotechnology from The Point of View of 15–19-Year-Old High School Students

Abstract

ABSTRACTModern biotechnology will have a large impact on society and requires informed decision-making and critical attitudes toward biotechnology among the public. A written survey was used to explore these attitudes of 160 high school students (aged 15 to 19 years) divided into two groups depending on whether they elected biology as an optional subject in their compulsory education. Students were asked to read 13 statements about specific applications of genetic engineering and to assess to what extent they found these applications useful, risky and morally acceptable. The respondents studying biology were less inclined to accept the use of xenotransplantation, genetic screening and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis than respondents not studying biology. Prenatal genetic diagnosis, gene transfer into plants or bacteria, and therapeutic cloning of human stem cells tended to be perceived as less risky by students who were studying biology than by those who were not. From a moral point of view, most biology students assessed some medical applications of genetic engineering (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, genetic screening and xenotransplantation) as less acceptable than non-biology students. Overall, the results indicated that students 'attitudes towards biotechnology applications changed according to the species of organisms and the purpose of the genetic manipulation. The implications of these results for development of biotechnology teaching in secondary school biology education are discussed.