Biotechnology in American High Schools: Then and Now

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As part of an early grant from the NSF's Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Program, the DNA Learning Center (DNALC) conducted a nationwide survey of 4,100 high school biology teachers. This purposive sample took a snapshot of biotechnology/molecular genetics instruction in American high schools in 1998 using unique datasets from the 1980s and 1990s. This research project will repeat that study to see where biotechnology instruction stands two decades later. This survey will help the education community see how far biology instruction has come over the last 30 years, and where it needs to point for the next 30 years. The 1998 study showed that the early adoption of biotechnology lab instruction was concentrated in schools located in high wealth suburban zip codes. It is important to see if, today, hands-on biotech instruction has broadened to include poorer and more diverse urban populations. It is also expected that the study will correlate changes in teacher attitudes and behavior with funding and educational trends over this period of time such that the study results can provide insights for educational policy.The 1998 DNALC survey possesses unique datasets from the 1980s and 1990s. Many of the teachers who responded to those surveys have since retired. This study offers the rare opportunity to compare two generations of biology teachers. The previous generation pioneered the introduction of new labs that illustrated the basic concepts of molecular genetic manipulation, mostly using the microbial model E. coli. The current generation of teachers faces the challenge of bringing biology instruction into the age of whole-genome analysis of humans and other organisms. The proposed survey will compare lab instruction and student exposures to four major techniques of biotechnology/molecular genetics that were measured in the original survey: bacterial transformation, DNA restriction analysis, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and DNA sequencing. Responses will be compared across a range of variables in the original study, including: Constraints (student ability, administrative support, parental support, syllabus, textbooks, lab space, equipment/supplies, class size, class and prep time); Behaviors/Performance (four biotech labs, lab prep methods, kit use, lab "field trips," funding amount and sources, opportunities for training, number of Internet-enabled computers, Internet use, information sources); and Demographics (school enrollment, percent minority/disadvantaged, biology class size, length of lab period, age/sex/race, ethnicity, years teaching, certification/highest degree, professional development, extracurricular activities). Additionally, the data from at least 600 teachers trained at week-long workshops conducted from 1987-1996 will be included. These surveys had identical or comparable questions as the nationwide survey, but also included semantic differentials - which provide a unique way to measure attitudes. Teachers rated their reactions to "recombinant DNA, biotechnology" and "myself as a biology teacher" on 18 scales of polar adjectives ("important-unimportant," "messy-neat," "dangerous-safe," etc.). Responses clustered in dimensions of potency, activity, and evaluation - providing a validated way to track shifts in teacher attitudes. Case-controlled analysis will provide an informative comparison between historic and current cohorts. Participants at each time point will be sorted into matched groups based on school and teacher demographics. By analyzing the data in this manner, a number of confounding variables will be eliminated to better understand how biology teaching practices have changed.