Investigating South Korean Students’ Risk Perception Related to the Development of Science and Technology

The rapid progression of science and technology has brought both remarkable con - veniences and innovations and potential risks to u s. To address these risks within science educatio n, this study aims to identify the tendency of students’ risk percep - tions across different technologies. For this purpos e, we developed a survey address - ing three key components of risk perception (i


Introduction
It is necessary for citizens to recognize the potential risks of societal problems and to make informed decisions to minimize exposure to these risks.COVID-19 may have increased the perception of the need for risk education, which may play a critical role in science education.The primary goal of science education has been to educate students to solve scientific problems, yet there has been a blind spot in this regard (Pietrocola et al., 2021).This means that teaching science should go beyond its current scope and aim to foster scientifically literate citizens.Such science education enables them to make more informed decisions (Vesterinen et al., 2016), recognize the risks associated with problems appropriately, and manage them to reduce the likelihood of those risks.
There have long been discussions about risk education within the broader context of science, technology, and society (STS) and science, technology, society, and environment (STSE) education and socioscientific issues (SSI) in science education (Schenk et al., 2019).Recognizing the interplay between science, technology, and society is well established in science education, highlighting the need to foster students' scientific literacy to navigate an increasingly complex and uncertain world (Jenkins, 2000).In this regard, attention to STS and STSE within science education has led to the incorporation of risk education in science classrooms as part of the broader curriculum (Christensen, 2009).For instance, Singapore's Practices of Science framework (Ministry of Education, 2021) explicitly addresses risks by stating, "There are risks and benefits associated with the applications of science in society" (p.8), enhancing students' understanding of STSE.From this point of view, one of the goals of risk education in science is to equip students with the tools to achieve this understanding.
Similarly, SSIs share roots with STSE in underscoring the connection between science and social issues as intrinsic to the nature of science (Pedretti et al., 2008).Part of risk education in SSI-based education includes topics such as electromagnetic radiation (Kolstø, 2001), nuclear power (Ozturk & Yilmaz-Tuzun, 2017), and genetically modified organisms (Cinici, 2016).The goal is to nurture scientifically literate citizens who can comprehend relevant and controversial issues adequately, critically analyze and synthesize various data sources, and make informed ethical decisions (Zeidler, 2014).Given the uncertain nature of SSIs, the critical validation of knowledge for risk assessment has also been emphasized (Bencze et al., 2020;Morin et al., 2014).
Although risks are recognized and taught as components of STSE and SSI-based education, as discussed above, addressing the necessary pedagogical considerations for risk education in science through STSE and SSIs is challenging.This is because teaching and learning about STSE and SSIs may not be focused on evaluating and deciding an acceptable range of potential risks while considering benefits.Schenk et al. (2021), who performed an extensive review that investigated the connection of 296 empirical SSI studies and 91 theoretical studies in science education to risk and risk analysis, found that SSI studies did not clearly involve risk assessment and management.Only a few studies introduced the notion of risk and how to analyze risks, and almost half of the studies did not mention risks at all.This review study may indicate that a typical approach or framework for SSI education may not be sufficient in dealing with risk in teaching and learning.Given that the advancement of the development of science and technology involves both risks and subsequent benefits (Beck, 1992), it is necessary to engage students more actively in assessing and managing risks more specifically associated with the development of science and technology.
In this context, as a starting point for further developing risk education in science teaching and learning, this study aims to investigate students' perceptions of risk across various technologies relevant to the development of science and technology.In particular, there has been little investigation into an overview of students' risk perceptions related to various technologies, although several studies have examined risk perceptions within specific technologies such as radioactivity (Wojcik et al., 2019), genetically modified food technology (Maes et al., 2018), and nanotechnology (Simonneaux et al., 2013) and preservice teachers' perceptions of risk education preparations (Cinici, 2016;Kim & Na, 2023).Through this study, which investigates students' overall risk perceptions regarding different technologies, we can design risk education more appropriately within the context of science teaching and learning to enhance students' capabilities to respond to risks.

2
Literature Review

2.1
Risks in the Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity World The problems in our society have been becoming increasingly complex and dynamic, making them difficult to understand and manage.The world we now live in is full of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) (Bennett & Lemoine, 2014).This means we are expected to face unexpected or unstable challenges, characteristic of volatility.The uncertainty of the changes and events that may occur make them difficult to predict.These events often involve many interconnected factors, making them overwhelming to process and manage, which is indicative of complexity.Due to this complex nature, it is challenging to discern clear causal relationships, leading to ambiguity.For instance, artificial intelligence (AI) is a promising technology that has had a significant impact on various fields in recent years, presenting considerable uncertainty.The use of AI technology not only creates many opportunities but also risks that need to be managed (Scientific Foresight, 2023).In education, generative AI can play various roles, such as supporting teachers, coteaching, evaluating students' responses, interacting with students, and providing timely and immediate feedback.These roles demonstrate AI's potential (Kuhail et al., 2023).However, risks such as cheating, plagiarism, generating misinformation, and propagating biased perspectives are new issues that must be carefully addressed for the proper use of generative AI (Mishra et al., 2023).As this example of AI shows, the risks contained in the new and highly complex problems in the VUCA world require more attention that can be responded to appropriately through risk education.

2.2
Objectives of Risk Education in Science Classrooms Given that we live in the VUCA world, the need for risk education has grown, sparking various discussions in areas such as STSE, SSI-based education, environmental risk education, and risk perception studies on the objectives of risk education.These discussions have resulted in categorizing three aspects of the objectives of risk education in science classrooms: risk recognition, risk assessment, and risk management.First, through risk education, students should understand the benefits and limitations of the development of science and technology and their potential risks.Students comprehend risks through two framings: scientifically perceived conceptions and subjectively framed conceptions (Christensen, 2009).Understanding risks scientifically tends to show fewer differences across different groups, while subjective framing of risks can vary widely across various regional, gender, and cultural groups, depending on their perspectives, values, experiences, and psychological attributes.A starting point for risk education could be focusing on enhancing the scientific conception of risks, but it eventually should cover both aspects, including understanding that different groups may have different risk perceptions (Zint & Peyton, 2001).For instance, students can start by understanding the risks associated with nuclear power plants and then appreciate the perceptual differences based on their living areas by studying reports of different perceived risks in Japan, the United States, and the Netherlands ( de Groot et al., 2013).
Second, through risk education, students should enhance their ability to evaluate the risks and benefits of technologies properly and scientifically.To assess risks and benefits, students should also collect and analyze relevant information to estimate risks (Zint & Peyton, 2001), including their characteristics, severity, likelihood, and social impacts (International Risk Governance Center [IRGC], 2017).This is because sufficient, relevant, and valid information is essential for students to estimate risks and benefits more accurately.Although it is highly challenging for students to evaluate risks as experts in the relevant fields of risk, they may need to experience a more scientific and objective way of estimating risks and benefits, including understanding acceptable ranges of risk tolerance (Schenk et al., 2019).Furthermore, as complex problems increasingly emerge with the rapid development of science and technology, students may be required to focus more on enhancing their ability to evaluate risks and benefits than on merely knowing how to assess specific risks.
Finally, in terms of risk management, students should equip themselves with the skills to make informed decisions about reducing potential risks at both individual and societal levels.Certain actions should be taken by individuals to mitigate risks, while some risks should be managed at the societal or political level (Hansen & Hammann, 2017).For instance, during the pandemic caused by the worldwide spread of COVID-19, individuals needed to make well-informed decisions as responsible citizens, while institutional, governmental, and global efforts to manage public health were also made to flatten the curve (Pietrocola et al., 2021).Of course, managing risks is rarely straightforward, as they are perceived differently by individuals and across various groups, which have different perspectives, values, and benefits, leading to conflicts among individuals and groups.For example, students tended to respond differently to the use of risky substances to control the population of a particular species depending on their cultural attitudes towards nature (Garthwaite et al., 2023).This may imply that different groups can have differing perspectives on managing risks, even though they have the same risk assessment results.It would be beneficial for students to appreciate other groups' perspectives and experience how different groups can come together to make collective and reasonable decisions.Despite these risk management challenges, risk education is essential to help students to experience fair and informed decision-making processes as citizens (Schenk et al., 2019) who are scientifically literate (Pietrocola et al., 2021) and ethically considerate (Pedretti & Nazir, 2011).This may help foster their capabilities to manage risks alongside the rapid development of science and technology.
In summary, the objectives of risk education in science classrooms, as outlined above, focus on risk recognition, risk assessment, and risk management, though there is still scope for further exploration.Given the scarcity of both theoretical and empirical studies on risk education in science classrooms (Schenk et al., 2019), this study sets out to examine students' current risk perceptions, which may offer empirical evidence to further discuss and refine the direction of risk education.

2.3
The Features of Risk Perception There have been various studies investigating people's risk perceptions in areas such as finance, health, natural hazards, and technology in social science studies (Siegrist & Árvai, 2020).Many studies on risk perception have reported features related to the perceivers: -Individual characteristic factors, such as personal experience, emotion, cognitive bias, psychological traits, and personal belief, can explain their perceptions.This means risk perception is subjective and results in different individual decision-making, even when people face the same risk simultaneously.For example, during the pandemic caused by the worldwide spread of COVID-19, individuals might make different decisions regarding vaccination due to their risk perceptions, influenced by individual factors such as fear of vaccination side effects (Dryhurst et al., 2020).-Demographic variables, such as gender, age, and education, also have an impact people's risk perception.Generally, gender has been the most widely examined variable and shows a relatively weak association with risk perception (e.g., Cullen et al., 2018), while several studies have reported small or non-significant effects of age and education (Bearth et al., 2019).-Cultural factors across different countries and cultures may influence risk perception.For instance, a culture's orientation towards individualism or collectivism may impact how it perceives risks (Weber & Hsee, 1998).-There has been a significant gap between experts' and non-experts' risk perceptions.Experts tend to focus on qualitative investigations, such as the Downloaded from Brill.com 06/08/2024 07:13:36AM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/probability of a risky event happening, while non-experts are more influenced by affective characteristics.This is where risk education is necessary, as it can help reduce this gap.Figure 1 (IRGC, 2017, p. 20) presents a brief overview of how risk is evaluated, considering both the probability of event occurrence and the extent of consequences at a governmental level.Depending on whether the result of a risk evaluation is acceptance, reduction, prohibition or substitution, a government or institution should differently manage and respond to risks (see IRGC, 2017).It may be challenging for the general public to conduct risk evaluations rigorously adhering to an expert's approach.Risk education can help narrow this perception gap, enabling individuals, society, and governments to respond to risks collectively with more informed decisions.The aim is not to equip students with levels similar to experts' risk assessment capabilities.However, risk education may allow students to have a better process of risk assessment so that they can more cautiously and manageably perceive and understand the benefits and risks of technologies.This can help foster students' risk-relevant scientific literacy, allowing them to participate in the process of risk management at both individual and societal levels.
Although there have been various investigations of risk perception for adults, students' risk perceptions involving various technologies overall have been rarely examined.In addition, there has been a lack of understanding of how students need and perceive risk education, as science educators have not yet explicitly studied these issues.This study therefore aims to extend and actualize risk education in science classrooms by examining how students perceive risks, particularly understanding of risks, risk assessment, risk management.Since demographic variables such as gender, age, and education have an impact on risk perception as stated above, this study examines the effects of gender and school level on students' risk perception.To capture students' educational needs of risk education, this study also asks their perception of necessity and urgency of risk education, guided by Urgent-Important Matrix (see Covey, 2004).

Research Questions
The following research questions were formulated that guided this study.

1.
How do students perceive risks associated with the development of science and technology? 2. How do students' risk perceptions differ in terms of their school level and their gender?

Participants
We surveyed Years 6, 8, and 10 students in the provinces of Gyeonggi-do, Gyeongsangnam-do, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Chungcheongnam-do and the cities of Seoul, Busan, Sejong, Gwangju, and Incheon in South Korea.Although this study did not examine differences in risk perception based on regional differences, the data collection was purposefully done to ensure diversity.The recruitment was voluntary, and it was approved by the IRB of the project principal investigator's institution.As participants were under 21 years of age, the survey was completed after parental agreement.The survey was performed in November 2023.Table 1 shows a summary of participants' demographic information.

4.2
Measurement and Data Processing We developed a survey comprising 10 sets of questions associated with 12 selected technologies.Each set contained 10 questions focusing on risk perception and educational needs.To select technologies for the survey, considering that the target participants were Korean students, we searched the Research Information Sharing Service, a database for Korean academic journals, and four major Korean daily newspapers using the BIGkinds database.The purpose of sourcing types of technologies from academic studies was to involve technologies that for a long time have been objects for investigating risk perceptions.(2024) 1-31 | 10.1163/23641177-bja10075 Daily newspapers were included to involve topical issues that, because they have relatively recently been highly publicized, may have had an influence on students' experience.In other words, we aimed to involve both long-lasting and emerging technologies through both two types of databases.
Utilizing the Research Information Sharing Service database with the keyword "risk," we extracted 11 topics we classified as relevant to science and technology, such as architecture, transport, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and power plants, from 9,094 journal abstracts using latent Dirichlet allocation, a topic modelling method (Jelodar et al., 2019).To find topics in daily online newspapers, which are easily accessible, we extracted 25 topics from 19,314 articles using latent Dirichlet allocation analysis.Initially, we discovered 229,340 articles in the IT and science category over the period from 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2023.After removing duplicates and similar articles, we finalized a list of 19,314 articles for analysis.Through searches in these two databases, we obtained 36 topics and independently listed 20 topics by three of the authors, considering their relevance to the development of science and technology, their popularity with the public, and their potential application in science classrooms.Finally, after iterative discussions, we selected 12 topics as technologies from teach set containing 20 topics, recognizing that too many technologies could be challenging for general elementary and secondary students to survey.We also developed 10 questions to assess risk recognition, covering cognitive and affective individual characteristics (i.e., understanding, familiarity, and fear), risk assessment (i.e., probability, duration and severity of damages, and benefits), risk management (i.e., individual efforts to reduce risk), referring to Dryhurst et al. (2020), Siegrist and Árvai (2020), and IRGC (2017), and the educational need for risk education (i.e., necessity and urgency of risk education).Risk recognition refers to the perception and understanding of the levels associated with specific technologies, the extent of familiarity with the risks associated with these technologies, and the level of fear experienced if such risks were to materialize for individuals.This recognition can be subjective and is influenced by an individual's knowledge, cognitive biases, psychological traits, personal beliefs, and cultural background (Dryhurst et al., 2020;Siegrist & Árvai, 2020).Risk assessment involves an individual's perceptions of the probability of occurrence and the extent of consequences in the utilization of a technology (IRGC, 2017) so that they can make a more informed decision when considering the benefits of that technology.This does not necessarily mean a rigorous risk evaluation by experts at institutional and governmental levels involving quantitative analysis but can also refer to students' perspectives of the probability, duration, and severity of damages if risks occur.This perception may serve as one of the indicators to estimate the gap between students and experts, which can be referred to as empirical data to select technologies to teach in designing risk education.Risk management refers to the perception of how people's efforts can minimize the impact of risks or mitigate risks (IRGC, 2017; Siegrist & Árvai, 2020).The educational need for risk education refers to how students discern which technologies are important to be taught in relation to the potential risks of those technologies that need to be managed.Based on this conceptualization, we finalized 10 survey questions for this study.
Given that this study aimed to investigate students' risk perceptions across various technologies, we did not include predictors that could be used to understand the factors having an impact on risk perception in a specific area.All 10 questions are detailed in Table 3. Nine of these questions were designed using a 5-point Likert scale to gauge likelihood, and one question addressed the perceived duration of damage due to the use of technology if an event occurred.Initially, 15 items were extracted, but the number was ultimately limited to 10 after three rounds of discussion, considering that the set would be repeated for each technology and might be challenging (Preston & Colman, 2000) for our target participants, who were elementary and secondary students.For example, we initially included two questions related to individual and social efforts to reduce risks, as risk management requires both individual and social levels of effort (IRGC, 2017).To mitigate students' question loads, we selected a question as a starting point about students' perceptions of how their individual efforts could reduce risks, since the survey was more focused on individual's perceptions across different technologies.The questions were piloted by several students and reviewed by three science education experts, then revised to enhance the validity and clarity of the questions.One hundred and twenty questions were developed in Korean and asked in the survey.The sample items in Tables 2 and 3 have been translated into English.Overall, responses from the 331 participants were analyzed using the statistical software SPSS ver.28 after cleaning and removing 12 datasets that had missing data or outliers.To answer the first research question, we conducted a descriptive analysis across the 12 different technologies and visualized the differences.Additionally, we conducted a Pearson correlation analysis to find any significant relationships among the components of risk perceptions and represented them in case there was a significant correlation.This analysis allowed us to draw pedagogical considerations that may be useful for designing risk education activities in science classrooms.To analyze differences among groups based on school level and gender for the second research question, we conducted an independent samples t-test to examine the differences in risk perception between gender groups and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to examine the differences among the three different school level groups: Year 6, Year 8, and Year 10.Following the ANOVA, we also performed a Scheffé post-hoc test to identify significant differences among the groups.

Students' Risk Perception across Technologies
We plotted the mean scores of risk perception across the 12 selected technologies (see Figure 2).The mean scores for each ranged from 2.41 to 4.18 on a 5-point scale, except for the duration of damage.We illustrated the results focusing on the components of risk perceptions and educational needs and then described the features of risk perceptions for each of the different technologies.
On average, students perceived the benefits as one of the risk assessment components, with the mean scores ranging from 3.70 to 4.18, evidently higher than the other components.They responded with major and very major for more than 50% of all the technologies (See Table 5).This was interesting given that they also recognized the severity of damage if events occurred, which is another risk assessment component and ranged from 3.18 to 3.99, relatively higher than the other components of risk perception.This may suggest that students were capable of distinguishing between the benefits of technologies and the severity of damage caused by risks and were able to understand that they were not correlated.However, it appeared that there were mostly moderate positive correlations (Rodgers & Nicewander, 1988), ranging from .472 to .601, between fear and severity of damage in students' perceptions for 10 out of 12 technologies at the p < .01level (see Table 4).Since fear, which is a subjective factor, varies depending on the individual, this correlation should be given attention during risk education involving assessing the risks of technologies.Beyond that, there were no notable correlations among the components of risk perceptions across technologies.
On the other hand, students had the lowest mean score on the effectiveness of individual efforts to reduce risks.Although these mean scores showed how students thought about the need for the engagement of institutional and governmental management, it appeared that they recognized the limitation of individual efforts to minimize risks.Generally, students thought that risk education related to the technologies was necessary, ranging from 3.37 to 3.93, which were generally relatively higher than the mean scores for risk recognition of understanding, familiarity, and fear.This may indicate that students felt the need for risk education given their understanding of risks.Students' perception of urgency of risk education, ranging from 2.91 to 3.67, was relatively lower than that for necessity.
As shown in Figure 2, students' risk perceptions varied considerably across all technologies.The components of risk perception related to robotics, AI, the internet, and plastics generally had higher mean scores, whereas those for nanotechnology, large-scale construction, antimicrobial technology, and fossil fuel power were relatively lower.Among the higher mean scores of risk assessment components for robotics, AI, the internet, and plastics, different patterns emerged in risk management.Students tended to believe that risks associated with the internet and plastics could be reduced through individual efforts, while risks of AI and robotics were less likely to be mitigated in this way.The frequencies of the responses further illustrate this contrast.As depicted in Table 5, the responses categorized as very ineffective and ineffective for AI and Robotics exceeded 40%, while those deemed effective and very effective for the internet and plastics were also over 40%.Perhaps, it is likely that risks or problems associated with the internet and plastics have been taught in schools for a relatively long period.This could be investigated for future research to explore the reasons behind and examine the pedagogical implications for risk education.Interestingly, students had relatively good understanding of and were familiar with these four technologies having higher scores; however, they believed that the necessity of risk education for these technologies was the highest.
On the other hand, students recognized that the risks of radiation diagnosis and treatment, genetic manipulation, and nuclear power were severe, scoring 3.64, 3.74 and 3.87, which were relatively higher than those of the other technologies.They also felt that reducing risks of these three technologies through their individual efforts was difficult, with scores of 2.84, 2.67 and 2.62, which were the lowest among the technologies.Students perceived the benefits of technologies that had lower mean scores -nanotechnology, large-scale construction, antimicrobial technology, and fossil fuel power -as higher, while the remaining components of risk perceptions had lower mean scores.

Gender Differences in Risk Perception
The technologies showing the most significant contrast in perceptions between boys and girls were vaccines and antimicrobial technology.For the other technologies, there were small differences or no significant differences between boys' and girls' risk perceptions.However, the gap between boys' and girls' assessments of the probability, duration of damage, and severity of damage risks associated with vaccines and antimicrobial technology was significantly higher (p < .05)than for the other technologies (see Table 6).Moreover, girls' mean scores for probability and fear were also higher than those of boys.The gaps between boys' and girls' scores were 0.26 (vaccines) and 0.28 (antimicrobial technology) for probability, 0.35 for both vaccines and antimicrobial technology for duration of damage, 0.33 (vaccines) and 0.42 (antimicrobial technology) for severity of damage, 0.24 (vaccines) and 0.37 (antimicrobial technology) for fear.This may indicate that girls were more sensitive in assessing risks caused by vaccines and antimicrobial technology than boys.Additionally, girls reported significantly higher levels of fear and severity of damage regarding the risks of radiation diagnosis and treatment and large-scale construction than boys (p < .05).The gaps between boys and girls were 0.28 (radiation diagnosis and treatment) and 0.41 (large-scale construction) for fear and 0.30 (radiation diagnosis and treatment) and 0.45 (large-scale construction) for severity of damage.On the other hand, there were no statistical differences between boys' and girls' perceptions relevant to risk assessment in the areas of genetic manipulation, nuclear power, fossil fuel power, and plastics.

5.3
Differences in Risk Perception across Different School Levels One of the most notable features in the differences in students' perceptions among Years 6, 8, and 10 was their varying perceptions of the benefits regarding 11 out of 12 technologies, as revealed by a one-way ANOVA (See Table 7), in contrast to the other components of risk perception and the educational needs.Specifically, a Scheffé post hoc test indicated that Year 10 students recognized the benefits of six technologies -AI, the internet, radiation diagnosis and treatment, vaccines, nuclear power, and plastics -more highly than Years 6 and 8 students (p < .05).Regarding nanotechnology, the mean scores for benefits were significantly higher in the higher grades than in the lower grades (p < .01 or p < .001).There was a similar tendency in the perception of familiarity.Year 10 students were significantly more familiar with technologies such as genetic manipulation, nuclear power, and fossil fuel power than Years 6 (p < .001)and 8 (p < .05)students.On the other hand, Year 10 students thought the probability of events occurring related to the risks of genetic manipulation and nuclear power technologies were significantly lower than in the other grades (p < .05).manageable by individuals than the risks of robotics and AI.This may have been because students had a relatively higher understanding of responding to risks associated with the internet and plastics technologies, as they might have already directly and indirectly experienced internet-related risks such as cyber security and plastics-related risks such as microplastics and have learned at school about how to reduce risks through information or technology education (Lee, 2018) and environmental education (Mun et al., 2020;Wu et al., 2017), respectively.Conversely, students may have felt that the risks of robotics and AI are relatively higher than other technologies because these risks are still difficult to reduce on an individual level.The patterns of risk perception of genetic manipulation and nuclear power were different from those of robotics, AI, the internet, and plastics.Students perceived the risks of genetic manipulation and nuclear power as severe and felt greater fear about them than they did about other technologies, even though they thought they were not as familiar with technologies and the probability of these technologies causing them harm.These patterns might have stemmed from the fact that they did not have sufficient opportunities to learn about accepting these technologies based on consideration of their risks.Eijkelhof (1986), in a study dealing with the acceptability of risks related to ionizing radiation, found that it was important to teach this acceptable range of risk concepts in science classrooms.Similarly, it is necessary to provide a space where students can discuss and investigate technologies, their risks, and their benefits, as well as acceptable risk ranges.Through a variety of discussions on acceptable risk ranges and benefits, students may gain better insights into how to respond more appropriately to technologies.For example, as shown in Table 7, high school students on average assessed the benefits of the technologies higher than did elementary and middle school students.This may suggest that students can be taught to perceive risks more appropriately, avoiding overestimation or underestimation of risks (Bencze et al., 2020).
On the other hand, students' perceptions of nanotechnology and large-scale construction were also different from the patterns described above.The risks related to these two technologies were relatively not well understood, while students thought that the technologies provide moderate levels of benefits compared to other technologies.Students perceived that the risks relevant to these two technologies were not relatively high and that risk education was not urgent.For vaccines and antimicrobial technologies, greater significant differences in risk perception were observed between boys and girls than were seen in the other technologies, particularly in assessing risks associated with these technologies.These results may be linked to the differing vaccine responses between males and females, as females' immune systems generally have higher antibody responses and experience different adverse effects compared to males (Flanagan et al., 2017), which may have impacted the results.This perceptual gap between different gender groups could be considered one of the components of risk education, helping students to embrace different perspectives given the nature of risk perception.In a similar vein, the result in this study that students' perceptions of fear and severity of damage were positively correlated (Table 4) could also be utilized in discussing the features of risk perception, which can be subjective (Christensen, 2009).Discussion of subjective nature of risk perception may help students to become better able to recognize different views of risk that depend on psychological traits, personal experience, emotions, and cognitive bias (Siegrist & Árvai, 2020).This understanding can also be helpful in contributing to making informed risk-management decisions at the societal level.
Overall, the differing natures of technologies and students' characteristics, including their biological conditions, and learning environments, result in students perceiving technologies and their potential risks differently.As such, it would be necessary to consider this variety of students' risk perceptions, when designing and approaching risk education in science classrooms.

6.2
Risk Education regarding the Rapid Development of Science and Technology Science and technology have rapidly and increasingly developed and have presented problems that are complex, uncertain, and unpredictable (Bennett & Lemoine, 2014).It thus is necessary to equip students with scientific literacy or capabilities to allow them to respond to potential risks by properly considering technologies' advantages, having a scientific understanding of risks, perceiving the subjective features of risks, understanding the levels of acceptability of risks, and being capable of risk management.The focus of risk education in science classrooms should not be on understanding specific risk assessments and management strategies but on enhancing their capabilities, as discussed in the literature review.This is because risks and relevant problems, which are complex and dynamic, should be carefully and properly recognized, assessed, and managed.The results showing differences across different school levels did not indicate significant differences for most components of risk perception (see Table 7).Although this study did not directly measure students' response capabilities to risks, this result may suggest that a more systematic approach is needed for risk education in science classrooms.For this, developing more detailed standards that specify achievement levels of capabilities or competencies for risk education through future studies would be essential.
Students may be required to participate in well-informed decision-making to manage risks more effectively at both individual and societal levels.In this regard, improving students' capabilities can help mitigate risks not only for individuals but also for our society, facilitating their active participation as scientifically literate (Pietrocola et al., 2021), ethically considerate (Pedretti & Nazir, 2011), and responsible citizens.Additionally, to engage students more in managing risks appropriately, it is necessary for them to understand how individual and social efforts come together and how their informed decision-making contributes to risk management.Considering that students were aware of their limited individual efforts for certain technologies (see Figure 2), they can benefit from opportunities to learn how to participate at both individual and social levels through risk education.Perhaps those technologies where students perceive their individual efforts as limited could be more emphasized when conducting risk education in science classrooms.
There has been a lack of understanding of students' risk perceptions, given the necessity of risk education in science classrooms.Through this study, we now have a better understanding of the features of students' risk perceptions, in line with the objectives of risk education in terms of risk recognition, risk assessment, and risk management.We believe the results of this study can contribute to a more nuanced understanding, which can be utilized as empirical data when designing risk education activities.the nature of science (NOS), history and philosophy of science (HPS), scientific knowledge and mathematization, informal science education, gifted education in science, socio-scientific issues (SSI), and public understanding of science (PUS).He currently research about risk perception and response in science education as a researcher of the SSK projects of the National Research Foundation of Korea.
Jinhee Kim is a Research Fellow at Chuncheon National University of Education, contributes to the Social Sciences Korea (SSK) project funded by the Korea Research Foundation.Holding a Ph.D. in Educational Administration from Sookmyung Women's University, she has over a decade of experience in science education policy at Seoul National University's Education Research Institute.Her research focuses on educational policy, school innovation, and the diffusion of innovation, particularly in risk education within primary and secondary schools.
Jiyeon Na is a professor of science education at Chuncheon National University of Education (CNUE) in South Korea.She earned her BSc and MEd degrees in primary science education from CNUE, and her PhD in physics education from Seoul National University (SNU).Prior to joining CNUE, she worked as a primary teacher for approximately 10 years and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at SNU.She has been involved in several national-level science education projects including 2015 National Science Curriculum and Korean Science Education Standards (KSES).She is currently active as a Principal Investigator for the science education project focusing on Science Education's Response to Risks in the VUCA Era.Her current research interests cover risk education in science education and science lessons utilizing smart technologies.

Figure 2
Figure 2 Heatmap of students' risk perceptions and educational needsNote: The overall data set can be found in TableS1in the Supplementary document.
Korean students' perceptions of risks associated with well-known technologies relevant to the development of science and technology, focusing on risk perception components and their educational needs.Student's risk perceptions for different technologies differed in terms of risk recognition (understanding, familiarity, and fear), risk assessment Downloaded from Brill.com 06/08/2024 07:13:36AM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Park et al. 10.1163/23641177-bja10075 | ASIA-PACIFIC SCIENCE EDUCATION (2024) 1-31 Downloaded from Brill.com 06/08/2024 07:13:36AM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Park et al. 10.1163/23641177-bja10075 | ASIA-PACIFIC SCIENCE EDUCATION (2024) 1-31 /23641177-bja10075 | ASIA-PACIFIC SCIENCE EDUCATION (2024) 1-31

Table 2
A list of the selected technologies to investigate risk perception Downloaded from Brill.com 06/08/2024 07:13:36AM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Investigating South Korean Students ' Risk Perception ASIA-PACIFIC SCIENCE EDUCATION (2024) 1-31 | 10.1163/23641177-bja10075

Table 4
Table S1 in the Supplementary document.Correlation between fear of risk and severity of damage Downloaded from Brill.com 06/08/2024 07:13:36AM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ASIA-PACIFIC SCIENCE EDUCATION (2024) 1-31 | 10.1163/23641177-bja10075

Technology Antimicrobial technology Vaccines Genetic manipulation Nuclear power Fossil fuel power Plastics Severity of damage
Downloaded from Brill.com 06/08/2024 07:13:36AM via Open Access.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Park et al. 10.1163/23641177-bja10075 | ASIA-PACIFIC SCIENCE EDUCATION (2024) 1-31

Table 5
Visualization of frequencies on a 5-point Likert scale The quantitative data can be found in TableS2in the Supplementary document.

Table 6
Gender differences in risk perception regarding selected technologies Note: *p < .05,**p<.01,***p<0.001.The overall data set can be found in TableS3in the Supplementary document.

Table 7
One-way ANOVA of risk perception across school years (cont.)Thistableonly shows familiarity, probability, and benefits among risk perceptions.The overall data set can be found in TableS4in the Supplementary document.