Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

At a time when gene technologies are gaining increasing prominence, this research enabled a better understanding of how the dynamics of public attitudes towards genomics are underpinned by factual knowledge. It examined the extent to which a more knowledgeable public adopts attitudes that are more favourable, or opposed, to genetic science and whether this kind of information is of any real importance in shaping attitudes over time. This was achieved by taking a sample of respondents from the British Social Attitudes Survey, 2003 (BSA 2003 - not currently held at the UK Data Archive) and using them as the basis of an innovative panel study. Approximately six months after the initial survey, a random sample of BSA 2003 respondents were re-contacted for a second interview and randomly split into three equal groups, with two groups being exposed to a video film intervention that provided information on genetics: for one group, the film included additional information on the regulation of genetic technology, but for the other group it did not. The third group acted as a control. Immediately after the intervention, these respondents were re-interviewed using a subset of genomics-based questions from the BSA, and further questions relating to the intervention. A second follow-up interview was conducted by telephone three months later, using the same subset of questions, which allowed a detailed assessment of the longer-term impact of scientific knowledge on attitudes to genomics. It has thus been possible to determine the nature of the lag between the reception of information and attitude change, whether different domains of factual knowledge vary in their effect on attitudes over time, and how the knowledge-attitude relationship is mediated and moderated by individual characteristics.

Main Topics:

This dataset contains information on 867 respondents who completed Waves 1 and 2 of the panel study. Of these, 458 individuals subsequently agreed to a second re-interview, and data are also present for these cases in Wave 3 (identified by the variable 'in3'). Details of the 'condition' (i.e. short video/longer video/non-video group) to which each respondent was allocated are also included, along with basic demographic information (age, gender, education, etc.). This is followed by data from a battery of 51 questions that examine respondents' attitudes to various aspects of genomics (genetically modified (GM) foods, genetic testing, therapeutic cloning, etc.). These questions are repeated at each wave of data collection, allowing users to examine changes in attitudes and the impact of the two films shown. Variables are also included that detail respondents' feelings about the video intervention (if they were placed within these conditions). The dataset also includes the variable ‘serial’, enabling users to link the dataset with the BSA 2003 to uncover additional information about the respondents who completed the panel study. A total of 181 variables are included in the dataset, with those respondents who only completed the first two waves of data collection having information for 130 of them. Standard Measures: Many of the attitude items used in this dataset have been used in previous BSA surveys (e.g. 1999 and 2001 (see under SNs 4318 and 4615), and also by the Wellcome Trust Consultative Panel on Gene Therapy.

Multi-stage stratified random sample

Face-to-face interview

Telephone interview