Survey of Public Understanding of Science and Technology; Pilot Study in Tehran

This article is extracted from a research project entitled “pilot study of science and society survey” that is done as first Survey of public understanding of science and technology, in this from, in Iran and among residents of Tehran. The Problem statement of present paper explains the necessity of doing periodical studies about public attitude and understanding of Science and Technology as a project for monitoring the country’s scientific development. In the theoretical and conceptual framework, we indicate to deficit models (scientific Literacy and public understanding of science) and public participation and engagement, and experiences of other countries have been examined with emphasis on indexes and measures of their surveys. The Main bulk of the paper is constituted by description of data and results of public understanding of science and technology in Tehran, with a comparative view and glance to data from other countries. The questioner of study formulated by a set of open and closed-ended questions, through using the other countries’ experiences and insights obtained from interviews with Iranian experts. Statistical sample is selected by random sampling technique. Data have been analyzed by SPSS and LISREL Softwares. In conclusion section, some new hypothesis have been provided for future study and some suggestions have been proposed for improving the methods of measuring the public understanding of science and technology in Iran.