Team:Hong Kong-CUHK/Questionnaire

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Questionnaire

Purpose:

We have made the questionnaire in early June and we collected the data for around two months. The purpose of doing questionnaire is to collect the opinion of the public about life science, synthetic biology and our project. And the questionnaire is answered by people from different ages, not only secondary school students and universities students. People are also from different educational background as we want to observe the attitude of people towards synthetic biology and our project. The samples are collected in Hong Kong because the acknowledgement of synthetic biology is important to local policies about science in Hong Kong.

Method:

The method we used to distribute the questionnaire is online-distribution. We got 206 responses. 143 of them are female and 63 of them are male. The groups of people that we want to focus are the ages of the sample. The first group is aging from 16 years old to 20 years old; second group is from 21 years old to 30 years old; third group is from 31 years old to 40 years old and the last group is those 41 years old or above. People aging 16 years old to 30 years old are mainly secondary school students and universities students studying biology-related courses.

Result:

There are 145 people prefer our project 1(ABCDE) more and 61 people prefer our project 2(MNOPQ) more, which means people concern the environment and greenhouse gases more.

In question 8, we can see that life science brings positive influence to the aspect of medicine and health(an average score of 4.888) most while it brings least influence to economy(an average score of 4). This is based on the result of the calculated average score of each aspect. Actually, all aspects have a score of at least 4.

In question 9, over four-fifth of the participants find that life science brings significant impact to their personal life. The mean score is 4.41(full score is 6), which indicates that life science is quite significant to daily life.

For question 10, nine out of ten of the participants think that life science is beneficial and important to human beings. This is based on the mean score of 4.7(full score is 6), which shows that a large portion of people think it is beneficial and important.

From these three questions, life science is important to the daily life and mainly in medicine and health aspect. There can be a further interview that ask about how life science affect their life and affect different aspects. Thus, we can gain more information of the public about life science, which is useful for promoting life science in the community.

In question 12, as we expected, synthetic biology is not common. The average score is just 2.74 (full score is 6), which means synthetic biology is not commonly known.

From question 13, more than seven out of ten of the participants rated a score of 3 or above in the aspects of useful and important and more than half of the participants rated a score of 3 or below in the aspects of safe and ethical. Although synthetic biology is useful and important, it is not safe and ethical and thus, people may oppose to synthetic biology when synthetic biology become more popular in the society. In order to make people feeling more positive towards synthetic biology, education and promotion may help.From Questions 14, around 70% of people are willing to learn more about synthetic biology mainly because synthetic biology can alleviate medical problems, which is same as Q18’s result. Two-third of these participants would like to learn synthetic biology through social media and workshop. Thus, promoting synthetic biology and alleviating the public’s concerns on synthetic biology through workshops and social media seems to be useful.However, around three out of ten participants are not willing to learn synthetic biology mainly because they are not interested in synthetic biology. Therefore, it is important to raise their awareness on synthetic biology by promoting it as an interesting or important issue and thus, they may pay more attention on synthetic biology and be more willing to learn it. In addition, more people will know about synthetic biology in more details and with fewer doubts.

In question 18, we can see that synthetic biology brings positive influence to the aspect of medicine and health (an average score of 4.369) most while it brings least influence to energy resources(an average score of 3.132). This is based on the result of the calculated average score of each aspect. And the aspect of medicine and health is closely related to our project. Participants find that both synthetic biology and life science can bring the great positive influence to medicine and health, it may due to the news always focus on the contributions of life science and synthetic biology on medicine and health but it seldom focus on other aspects. There would be more promotions and information focusing on the positive influences of life science and synthetic biology on environment, energy resources, agriculture and economy. Thus, the public can have a better overviews about both the life science and synthetic biology.

In question 19 and 20, around 70% people prefer project 1 more, while the other 30% chooses project 2. Their main reason for choosing the project is the significance of our projects on the society, such as the lead water problem, water pollution, air pollution, etc. and the efficiency of filtering of heavy metal.

In question 13, we asked about the effect on ethical aspect, the score is the lowest (average score of 3.238) and some of the participants would not like to learn synthetic biology because they think synthetic biology is “playing god”. This may be because of participants with religion who do not like synthetic biology much. There could be a further investigation about how religion is correlated to the feelings on synthetic biology. If there are any misunderstandings, the problem could be solved by explanation and thus, synthetic biology can be better accepted.

Discussion:

Correlation of participants from different background to the data:

Distribution of ages:

115 participants are 16-20 years old, 48 participants are 21-30, 27 participants are 31-40, 16 participants are 41 years old or above.

Correlation of ages:

The younger the participants, the more likely they think both life science and synthetic biology synthetic biology have a positive impact to the environment, energy resources, agricultural, medicine and health and economy. Also, they will find synthetic biology is more popular, ethical, important and safer. The perception of the participants may due to their educational background. Since life science and synthetic biology are maturing, nowadays students can encounter more knowledge of life science and synthetic biology during their studying and thus, they may be more confident with the life science and synthetic biology.

Thus, educating the public of life science and synthetic biology is mandatory to alleviate their negative feeling towards the life science and synthetic biology. The promotion method can be mainly the workshops and make use of the social media because these two methods are the most popular choices in Q16.

However, the middle-aged people (31-40) rate the lowest score, at least 0.4 lower than the overall average score, for the positive impacts of life science in all the aspects (environment, energy resources, agriculture, medicine and health, economy, personal life and social benefits). There would be a further research on why they will have these perceptions to life science but not the synthetic biology.

All groups of participants think that life science benefits the aspect of medicine and health most, which is same as the overall result. Participants of 16-20 think life science has a relative strong impact to the environment, comparing to other groups, because the average score is 4.7/6, which is at least 0.5 higher than that of other groups’ average score. It may also due to the educational background.

All groups rate the positive impacts of life science in all aspects with a higher score than that of synthetic biology, except the 16-20 groups rate the positive impacts of synthetic biology in economy with a 0.1 higher than that of life science. It may due to the popularity of life science because the public get the information of life science easier and they know more of life science’s advantages.

Distribution of educational background:

65 of the participants are F.7 or below, 141 of the participants are undergraduate or above.

Correlation of educational background:

Both participants have the educational background of F.7 or below and undergraduate or above show a similar pattern on the view of life science and synthetic biology. However, the greatest differences were shown in popularity and ethics of synthetic biology. Participants of F.7 or below think that the popularity of synthetic biology is higher than how participants of undergraduate or above think. It may due to their differences in the definition of the term popular. Undergraduates may find a few opportunities to work in synthetic biology field in Hong Kong and thus, it is not so popular while other group may find it popular when they heard about the synthetic biology. While participants of undergraduate or above think that synthetic biology is more ethic than how participants of F.7 or below think. It may due to the result of differences in knowledge of synthetic biology.

Distribution of biology educational background:

68 of the participants are F.5 or below, 94 of the participants are HKCEE or above and 44 of the participants are undergraduate or above (only those who study life science related major are considered as undergraduate or above in biology level).

Correlation of biology educational background:

In the opinions toward life science, a similar pattern is shown that participants of F.5 or below give the lowest score, those HKCEE or above give the medium score when compared to other two groups and the participants of undergraduate or above give the highest score in all aspects of environment, energy resources, agriculture, medicine and health, economy, personal life impact and social benefits. A similar pattern is also shown in the views of popularity, safety, ethics, importance and usefulness in synthetic biology. However, the pattern changes in other aspects concerning synthetic biology. Participants of HKCEE or above give the highest score, participants of F.5 or below give the lowest score and those undergraduate or above give the medium score to the aspects of environment, energy resources, agriculture, medicine and health and economy of synthetic biology. And the overall score of synthetic biology is lower than that of life science. It may because the participants of undergraduate or above acknowledge synthetic biology in a more detailed way in their study, comparing to participants of HKCEE or above. Gaining more knowledge about both the positive and negative sides of synthetic biology can help them to make a different conclusion.

The score of the positive impact of the 5 areas of life science are higher than that of synthetic biology in all of the 3 groups, except the 16-20 groups rate the positive impacts of synthetic biology in economy with a 0.16 higher than that of life science. This is similar to the result of the age groups.

Conclusion:

Synthetic biology is not so common in view of the public, this may due to various reasons. For those who are educated less may think that it is not very safe to develop and those who are more educated may think of a higher level of problem, which is the ethical problem. More promotion and education is needed to make people acknowledge more.