University of Alberta, Canada.
Public Underst Sci. 2013 Jul;22(5):624-41. doi: 10.1177/0963662511420511. Epub 2011 Oct 18.
Survey data on 1217 adults living in Alberta, Canada were collected by Ipsos Reid Public Affairs and made available to us for analysis. The survey questioned participants on issues related to science including their perceived knowledge of science, attitudes toward science, and trust in science and technology. We developed a structural equation model to account for the causal relations implied by the correlations among the variables in the data set. Results show that trust in generalized science and technology is a large determiner of trust in specific technologies, but that trust in specific technologies is not a determinant of overall trust in science and technology. We also found that attitudes towards science have an effect on trust in generalized science and technology whereas perceived knowledge does not. Education and gender contribute to attitudes supporting an increased personal attachment to science, which was the strongest predictor of trust in our model.
我们使用益普索·瑞德公共事务公司收集的加拿大艾伯塔省 1217 名成年人的调查数据进行分析。该调查询问了参与者与科学相关的问题，包括他们对科学的认知、对科学的态度以及对科学技术的信任。我们开发了一个结构方程模型，以解释数据集中变量之间的相关关系所暗示的因果关系。结果表明，对广义科学技术的信任是对特定技术信任的重要决定因素，但对特定技术的信任不是对科学技术整体信任的决定因素。我们还发现，对科学的态度会影响对广义科学技术的信任，而感知知识则不会。教育和性别会影响对科学的支持态度，这种态度是我们模型中信任的最强预测因素。
