IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/stagec/161082.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Associations with plant genetic engineering: A perception analysis of students’ hopes and fears

Author

Listed:
  • Goldschmidt, Marlen
  • Bogner, Franz X.

Abstract

Public perceptions of plant genetic engineering are of increasing research interest. Although within the current debate on the cultivation of genetically modified plants, many related ethical, political and economic issues need specific consideration, young students’ views on this socio-scientific issue are largely unexplored. Therefore, our current analysis focussed on perceptions of Bavarian 10th graders (N=572) with regard to their hopes and fears in the context of plant genetic engineering. By applying a mixed-methods approach, students rated their individual hopes and fears on a 4-point Likert-scale (quantitative part) and gave a written statement about their individual associations (qualitative part): Hereby, hopes scored much higher than fears (medium effect). The subsequent categorisation of qualitative data resulted in five categories for hopes and four categories for fears. Hopes were mainly associated with economic or ecological aspects as well as with the overall fight against world hunger. Fears dealt mainly with negative consequences on human health and the fate of the environment. Additionally, subjective and objective knowledge were analysed for their influence on students’ perceptions. Subjective knowledge had a significant influence on hopes, objective knowledge did not. This background information is relevant for the age-appropriate preparation of biology lessons: Hopes and fears need to be specifically addressed in order to optimise educational efforts and to support students to become responsible citizens.

Suggested Citation

  • Goldschmidt, Marlen & Bogner, Franz X., 2013. "Associations with plant genetic engineering: A perception analysis of students’ hopes and fears," Studies in Agricultural Economics, Research Institute for Agricultural Economics, vol. 115(3), pages 1-7, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:stagec:161082
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.161082
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/161082/files/1314-goldschmidt_v2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.161082?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:stagec:161082. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/akiiihu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.