Print Email Facebook Twitter Gender differences in the evaluation of a risky technology Title Gender differences in the evaluation of a risky technology Author Vaandrager, M.Y. Contributor Huijts, N.M.A. (mentor) Faculty Technology, Policy and Management Department Ethics/Philosophy of Technology Programme MOT Date 2017-06-20 Abstract Research has been done on the gender differences in the evaluation of nanotechnology by Dutch TU Delft students. The research was executed using a questionnaire which was designed to examine if there are gender differences in the judgement of nanotechnology and if so, which variables play a significant role in this causal relations. Based on the factor analyses of the collected data, structural equation models (SEM) were estimated for the data of the whole sample, for the data of men and for the data of women. The analyses included the following 15 variables: gender, level of science education, studying nanotechnology, age, evaluation of nanotechnology, health and environmental effects, economical benefits, costs, level of trust in the government, level of trust in the industry’s concern with the environment, level of trust in the industry’s concern with safety, positive affect, negative affect, subjective knowledge, objective knowledge. The estimated SEMs showed that there is a significant gender difference in the evaluation of nanotechnology, as men evaluate nanotechnology more positive than women. This gender difference is largely explained by the variable on the expected effects of nanotechnology on health and environment. Other variables that have a significant effect on the evaluation of nanotechnology in the overall model are: age, gender, education, if the respondent has studied nanotechnology, trust in the industry’s concern with the environment. It was also found that the variable gender affects several relations between variables, meaning that the relation between these variables is different for men and women. The variables of which the direct relation with the evaluation of nanotechnology is affected by gender are ‘trust in the industry’s concern with the environment’, ‘expected costs’ and ‘studying nanotechnology’. The outcomes of this research suggest that it is essential to include women in the boards of the development of risky technologies. Women are for example less positive about the effects of nanotechnology on the health and environment, indicating that women pay more attention to the negative effects of the technology which makes them essential for responsible innovation. The results furthermore indicate that future research on the evaluation of risky technologies should take the underlying relations and variables into account because gender can influence the relations between the variables which results in different SEM’s for men and women. Subject Gender differencesnanotechnologyevaluation To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:d8a804b6-a0df-4114-aff1-d51c461ed1ea Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights (c) 2017 Vaandrager, M.Y. Files PDF Thesis_MirandaVaandrager_ ... rsion_.pdf 1.01 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:d8a804b6-a0df-4114-aff1-d51c461ed1ea/datastream/OBJ/view