• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.571-582
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• 2005

This study aims to examine primary school teachers' interest and understanding of bioethical issues, and to analyze their perception of bioethics teaching in the primary school education. For this purpose, the questionnaires were constructed. The data were collected from 553 primary teachers in the whole country. Major findings of the studys are as follows. First, most primary school teachers showed high level of interest about bioethical issues, but they had the limited understanding about bioethical issues. Primary teachers showed the highest interest about' respect for human life' and the lowest understanding of 'awareness of current biotechnology' Second, the prior reasons why primary teachers wanted to teach specific bioethical issues in the classes were that 'they were closely related to social phenomena' and 'they were appropriate for enhancing students' awareness of the value of life'. Third, the lack of the teachers' knowledge about bioethics and limited supply of teaching materials were found to be barriers, which prevent them from teaching bioethical issues. The implications of these results are discussed for the improvement of bioethics teaching in primary school education.