Opinions On And Attitudes Towards Genetic Screening - School of ...

Working Paper 5: Students' attitudes towards prenatal screening2 Design, methodology and administration of the probePart of the rationale of this project was to investigate the ways in whichyoung people at the end of their compulsory science education interact withinformation about 'the new genetics' and identify, evaluate and formopinions on issues that arise (see Working Paper 1). In recent years,arguments have been put forward for teaching science as part of thecompulsory curriculum for all young people in order to promote 'scientificliteracy' or 'the public understanding of science' (e.g. AAAS, 1989; Officefor Science and Technology, 1993; The European Commission, 1995).Three main reasons tend to be put forward for promoting the 'scientificliteracy' of all students, including those who will not study science beyondthe age ofcompulsory schooling:- the utilitarian case: knowledge from school science will bepractically useful in personal or professional contexts in later life;- the democratic case: in order to participate in democratic decisionmakingon issues with science content, a minimum level ofscientific understanding is required; and- the cultural case: science is a major cultural product and shouldtherefore be studied as part ofa general education.Suggestions that knowledge learnt during school science is likely to bedirectly useful in later life for utilitarian and democratic purposes seemunhelpfully naive. For example, it is highly unlikely that the school sciencecurriculum will cover in depth all the scientific fields likely to beencountered by all future citizens in their personal and professional lives.(For further discussion of the problematic nature of scientific literacy seeLeach, 1996).In designing this study, we adopted a cautious position about possible linksbetween the content of compulsory science education and adult 'scientificliteracy'. Adults making decisions about issues such as personal andprenatal screening for CF will be influenced by a range of factors, most ofwhich are likely to have little or nothing to do with school science.However, it is likely that at some point such adults would be presented withinformation about the genetic basis of CF, existing and possible futuretreatments, the implications of the condition for future lifestyle and so on.We do not think it unreasonable to assume that knowledge from schoolscience education might be drawn upon, along with other knowledge, in thissituation. This probe was therefore designed to investigate the ways inwhich students at the end of their compulsory science education interpretinformation about the genetic basis of the inheritance CF, its screening andtreatment, in order to identify, evaluate and form opinions on issues thatemerge.