An Investigation of Biotechnology Expert's Attitudes in University Centers of Tehran Province towards the Use of Transgenic Plants

The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of biotechnology experts in university centers of Tehran Province towards the application of transgenic plants. The study had a descriptive-correlation design and it was carried out through a survey method. The target population consisted of 75 biotechnology experts at university centers of Tehran Province. Using the Kerjcie and Morgan sample size table and a stratified randomized sampling method, 63 experts were chosen as the sample; the research instrumentwas questionnaire. Face and content validity of the questionnaire was established by using a panel of agricultural extension and education and biotechnology experts. A pilot test was conducted to determine the reliability of the questionnaire. The Cronbach alpha coefficient was estimated at between 0.83 and 0.93 by using SPSS software version 16. Descriptive findings indicated that 44.5% of experts’ attitudes towards using transgenic plants were either ‘positive’ or ‘relatively positive’ and other experts’ attitudes were either ‘negative’ or ‘relatively negative’. Three aspects of transgenic plants that had medium importance were: ecological (mean: 3.40), socioeconomic (mean: 3.34) and health-hygiene (mean: 3.12), respectively. The effective educational and extension factor in using transgenic plants was the mass media (mean: 4.26). Also, an important solution for application and development of transgenic plants was the establishment of a research center and incubator. Mann Whitney U test findings showeda statistical significant difference at a 1% level between male and female attitudes towards using transgenic plants.Spearman correlation coefficients showed a statistically significant and positive correlation between the ecological, socio-economic and health-hygiene aspects of transgenic plants with experts’ attitudes towards using these plants. Multivariate regression analysis indicated that the ecological and health-hygiene aspects determined 43.7% of the variations in the experts’ attitudes.