High school students’ knowledge and attitude toward biotechnology in Taipei

[[abstract]]The 21st Century is considered the time of biotechnology era containing scientific and moral concepts and its applications and products will be full of our daily life. The present generation students have to be provided enough knowledge of biotechnology to deal with controversial issues. In this study, high school students in Taipei city were surveyed on their knowledge and attitude toward biotechnology and self-compiled Biotechnology Knowledge Questionnaire (BTKQ) and Biotechnology Attitude Questionnaire (BTAQ) were used. Stratified cluster random sampling obtained from public high school students was studied. The valid questionnaire were 3066, including 1555 males and 1511 females. Confidence interval was 2.88~3.16％ in confidence level of 95％. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, independent-sample t test, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson correlation. The result revealed that total students’ attitudes toward biotechnology tended to be positive, and there was a significant difference in genders. Sources of biotechnology came from textbook (16.0％), teacher (14.2％), and internet (11.3％). Knowledge toward biotechnology was increasing with the students’ grade level with a significant positive correlation between attitude and the level of knowledge. Based on the results, it is essential to development an instrument to measure high school students’ knowledge and attitude toward biotechnology in Taiwan. Meanwhile, biotechnology curriculum in high school education should be emphasized and students’ knowledge and attitude toward biotechnology change should be observed timely.