ANALYSIS OF KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES TOWARD BIOTECHNOLOGY OF BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT STUDENTS STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

This research aims to detect the knowledge and attitudes toward Biotechnology. This research belongs to descriptive quantitative method. The number of population in this research is 269 students who are in the 2nd and 6th semester of biology department State University of Medan. The samples taken by purposive sampling technique. Data collection technique used multiple choice diagnostic test and questionairre. The result of this research after data analysis showed: (1) the percentage of 2nd semester students knowledge is 98% less and 2% good compare to the percentage of 6th semester students knowledge is 68% less, 27% good and 5% very good; (2) the result of attitudes toward biotechnology between 2nd and 6th semester are quitely same, they more agree if biotechnology just use in plant and microorganism which percentage ranging (65%-90%) and also they said agree that biotechnology is interesting science to study; (3) From the t-test, the data showed that there is significance differences of biotechnology knowledge between 2nd and 6th semester students (tcount 6.87 > ttable 1.97) but there is no significance differences of biotechnology attitudes between 2nd and 6th semester students (tcount 0.026 < ttable 1.9706); (3) the curriculum of Biotechnology Education is the most thing that must be fixed to increase the student knowledge; (4) Students must be awared to the biotechnology risk before chose the suitable attitudes.