Quantitative measurement of public opinions on new technologies

Abstract

The article presents the methodology of structural equation modeling (SEM) to study social perceptions of new technologies. It argues that the SEM-methodology offers a better statistical approach for the analysis of technology-related attitudes than the techniques most often applied in the field of public opinion research. SEM eliminates, compensates for, or at least reduces many problems raised by common surveying practices researching attitudes on new technologies. In particular, SEM-methodology reduces difficulties of testing the validity and reliability of measuring instruments when those are applied to vague and weakly established opinions on new technologies. To demonstrate these advantages of SEM the research presented here concentrates on the cognitive formation of public attitudes toward the particular gene technologies of prenatal genetic testing (pGT) and prenatal genetic engineering (pGE). The study explores whether a statistical analysis of various opinions on these technologies can reveal a set of underlying, structured attitudes, and if so, whether these attitudes form an entire syndrome or are differentiated into several distinct, coherent complexes.