High school biology teachers and bioethics: awareness, attitudes and teaching practices

Abstract

Nowadays, with the advancement of technology, biotechnology and genetic engineering applications have gained momentum, especially in the field of medicine, very important developments have been made. However, the risks and ethical aspects of these practices cause conflict among scientists. These applications within the scope of bioethics are taught within the high school MoNE curriculum and the IBDP curriculum. Disagreements between scientists are likely to manifest themselves in biology classes. This study investigates the bioethics awareness of high school biology teachers, their attitudes towards bioethics and teaching these subjects, and their instructional strategies. Thus, the research aims to contribute to bioethics education. In this study, the mixed method in which qualitative and quantitative research approaches are applied together was used. The data of the study were analysed by descriptive statistics and content analysis methods. Analysis results determined that teachers have bioethical awareness, have a positive attitude towards bioethics, and make use of various teaching strategies that they think are effective for teaching.