Teacher trainees' attitudes towards bioethical issues

The present study intends to investigate (i) the concepts of ethics and bioethics, (ii) the attitudes towards various bioethical issues and (iii) the related academic, religious, social, and gender background, of the teachers trainees of Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). Many modern advances in science and technology have social implications. Notably among them are bioethical issues, such as genetic manipulations, test-tube babies, birth controls, sex pre-determination, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, and environmental protection. Attitudes towards these bioethical issues not only affect the welfare of the present generations, but also have serious social repercussions extending to the future generations. Since one of the missions of HKIEd is to produce quality students with the personal qualities necessary to become successful teachers, and one of the aims of education is to cultivate ethical and responsible citizens, it is of treat importance to see whether our teacher trainees have conscientious judgment in these bioethical issues. This preliminary research is mainly quantitative. Over 280 valid questionnaires have been processed statistically. The findings include: (1) Most teacher trainees understand ethics but misunderstand bioethics; (2) Female students significantly disagree more on the one-child policy; (3) Biological knowledge seems have no significant effect on student attitudes toward bioethical issues ; (4)Religious students are significantly more conservative towards abortions, homosexuality, and sex pre-determination; (5) Older in-service students tend to hold a more traditional stance by disagreeing more towards homosexuality, however, they hold a more tolerant view by disagreeing less towards the choice of gender for babies. Copyright © 1996 University of Hong Kong.