College Student Awareness and Perception of Genetically Modified Foods

Genetically modified foods (GMFs) have been in the market for some time, and make up a significant portion of the food most people eat. How aware is the general population of the prevalence of genetically modified foods in their diet? There is reason to believe that the level of awareness of GMFs and the understanding of the technology behind GMFs is not high. Wingenbach, Rutherford and Dunsford (2003), for instance, discovered that fewer than 30% of 330 college agricultural communication students in the United States — students who one might reasonably assume would have a fairly accurate understanding of GMFs — correctly answered questions related to the technology behind GMFs.

Intrigued by the Wingenbach study, the authors of this paper were interested in learning about awareness of GMFs among their students. The authors designed and implemented a survey-based research study using students from their Environmental Biology class in 2009. Data collection was specifically guided by two research questions:

1. How aware are students of the prevalence of GMFs in their diets?
2. Does ethnicity affect college students’ perceptions of safety concerning GMFs?

A telephone survey previously administered by the Food Policy Institute (Hallman et al. 2002) that measured awareness, acceptance levels, and safety perceptions regarding public perceptions of GMFs was modified by the authors into a written instrument for classroom data collection (attached as supplemental material). The survey was given before and after instruction regarding GMFs for a pre/post analysis. Because of the specific wording and order of questions on the survey, great care was taken to maintain the integrity of the original survey as it was reformatted to a written form. All questions retained their original vocabulary, sentence structure and order to maintain the validity and reliability of the survey instrument.

16 students were surveyed, of whom five self-identified as Hispanic while the remaining 11 self-identified as non-Hispanic White.

Before the classroom instruction, awareness of GMFs was low in most students (3 out of 17). Students reported paying little attention to the presence or absence of genetic modification when making food purchase decisions. The surveys also revealed no statistically significant differences in student’s opinions in this regard when disaggregated by ethnicity.

Subsequently, students were immersed in a semester-long discussion of GMFs. Classroom instruction first began by talking about the ever growing human population and the challenge of feeding people, followed by the green revolution, and strategies of pest control. Instruction then progressed to discussion of the prevalence of GMFs in modern society and the interplay between GMF technology and corporate interests.

The class instruction appeared to have made a noticeable impact. Nonparametric analysis of student surveys taken on the first day of class and 4 months later on the last day of class revealed significant (p < 0.0001) differences in awareness regarding GM technology. Intriguingly, the class instruction also appeared to have introduced a variance between the attitudes of Caucasian and Hispanic students that did not initially exist. As the course progressed, most Hispanic students (80%) indicated an increased attention to the presence or absence of genetic modification when making food purchasing decisions. On the other hand, a much higher proportion of Caucasian students (91%) (p < 0.001) indicated they would continue to eat genetically modified foods.

The small sample size of students makes these results non-generalizable to the population at large. Yet they suggest that, in the absence of specific instruction on issues surrounding GMFs, basic awareness of the role GMFs play in their diet by US undergraduate students is very low. They also suggest that ethnicity is a factor that should be more carefully studied by sociologists exploring societal responses to science in general and GMF science in particular.

Because the research conducted at our college is indicative, more survey data is needed to authenticate our initial findings, and we encourage colleagues to conduct their own experiments using our methodology and share their results. Even in advance of this larger body of work, however, the authors are confident in concluding that more courses touching on how foods are genetically manipulated; the effects of ingesting GMFs on future generations; and food product labeling and marketing strategies must be promoted in university curricula, in order to increase widespread scientific literacy and promote informed consumer decision-making.