Exploring Risk Perceptions: A New Perspective on Analysis

When secondary school students were asked about the socioscientific issue of using sodium fluoroacetate (1080) poison to control New Zealand's possum pests, they provided a wide range of responses. Their responses showed that they considered this method of control to be risky and contentious. Such contentious issues are an example of the complexity involved in using a socioscientific approach to investigate an aspect of post-normal science. This paper provides the background to and development of a new risk perceptions analysis framework that was employed to qualitatively interpret these diverse viewpoints. Four Cultural Types ("Nature Benign," "Nature Tolerant," "Nature Ephemeral" and "Nature Capricious") are accommodated within this framework. Each Cultural Type has a particular view of risk that is defined using common characteristics and is differentiated by unique individual attributes. It is proposed that this framework has the potential to analyse students' responses to this contentious issue of 1080 use. The framework could be used as an educative tool in classrooms to investigate the range of views within society about issues that involve risk. Additionally, it could be used to assist students to gain awareness of their own view as well as develop an appreciation about the differing views of risk held by other people when discussing contentious issues.