UK public perceptions around invasive species and biosecurity before and one year after undertaking e-Learning, 2015-2018

This data contains the results of student and professional perceptions surveys conducted in the UK before and after e-Learning training, as part of a project to determine the effectiveness of e-Learning as a training tool. The dataset include two surveys; before and after e-Learning training. Students and professionals were given two separate surveys which were combined to create one dataset. The surveys were collected between September 2015 and July 2018.

The objective of the survey was to collect data on participants’ awareness, risk perceptions and self-reported behaviours on biosecurity for invasive species. The topics on both the before and after survey included age, role at institution, field of work/study, field activity environments, cleaning methods for equipment, outerwear/footwear and transport and awareness and perceptions of risk around invasive species and biosecurity campaigns. The data does not include the aggregated cleaning scores that were used for the analysis nor has it excluded any participants that were not used in the final data analysis. The dataset has been anonymised by removing names of respondents, email addresses, departments or organisations worked for or studied in, and text responses which could have made the participant identifiable.

The research was funded by NERC project no NE/N008391/1.