Reviews of international research: science education and biomedical science

One of the Wellcome Trust's objectives, as expressed in our Strategic Plan 2005-2010 [PDF 2.2MB], is to listen to views raised by the public and track attitudes and knowledge about specific biomedical research issues to help develop our thinking and use it to influence public funding and policy making.

In order to achieve this, the Trust is to commission the Wellcome Monitor, a triennial survey to provide a good-quality knowledge base of both adults' and young people's awareness, knowledge, interests and attitudes regarding biomedical science.

The survey was conducted between January and March 2009. The full and summary reports will be available in December 2009.

In order to inform the development and scope of the Wellcome Monitor survey, two international literature reviews have been produced, one concerning research conducted on young people's attitudes to science education from the Institute of Education, University of London; and the other concerning research conducted on adults' interest, knowledge and attitudes regarding biomedical science by the University of Surrey.

The review of research conducted with young people aimed to:

• examine the issues covered to date in research on young people's attitudes towards science education and to the biosciences
• explore what is known and unknown about young people's attitudes towards science and the biosciences.

The review of research conducted with adults aimed to:

• determine what survey research has been done to date internationally in this area
• critically assess the approaches and questions used
• inform the development of the Wellcome Monitor survey.

Download a literature review of research conducted on young people's attitudes to science education and biomedical science:
Executive summary [PDF 1.16MB]
Full report [PDF 1.58MB]

Download a literature review of research conducted on public interest, knowledge and attitudes to biomedical science:
Executive summary [PDF 1.17MB]
Full report [PDF 2.13MB]

It should be noted that these reports are for information only and do not represent the views of the Trust in relation to the final design of the Monitor