Herbal Medicine: Science and Non-science Students' Perspective

Abstract

Herbal medicine uses plants and plant extracts for healing purposes and improvements in well-being (Vickers & Zollman, 1999). This study aims to know whether students at the University of North Georgia, Cumming campus, enrolled in a science course have a different perspective on herbal medicine from those enrolled in a non-science course. The null hypothesis is that there is no significant difference between the college students’ perspective on the use of herbal medicine whether they are enrolled in a science or non-science courses. A survey was conducted separately on 25 college students enrolled in science and non-science classes at UNG, Cumming campus. Data was analyzed and the difference in the responses was determined statistically using T-test. The results indicated that whether students are enrolled in science or non-science classes, they generally do not have any significant difference in their perspective on the use of herbal and non-herbal medicines. This supports the formulated null hypothesis. This implies that whether somebody has more science background or not, their perspective toward herbal medicine is the same. The interesting part was that there were a lot of students who generally have no idea about the difference between herbal and non-herbal medicines except those enrolled within the science class who seemed to know the difference more than those within the non-science course. It is recommended that more information dissemination on different forms of medicine available for all individuals may it be standard or alternative needs to be conducted.