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20.07.2022
BestMasters Award: Maresa Temmen’s thesis published by Springer
How is the acceptance of meat substitutes in Germany? Maresa Temmen addressed this question in her master's thesis, which she wrote under the supervision of Dr. Florian Fiebelkorn in the Biology Didactics group. In addition to the top grade, she received a special recognition for her work: the "BestMasters Award" from Springer combined with the publication of her results as a book.
In recent years, the range of plant-based meat substitutes available in German supermarkets has grown considerably. And the development of meat from cell cultures is also making progress - although related products are not yet approved for consumption in Germany.
Whether these alternatives will prevail over meat from slaughtered animals depends not least on public acceptance. Maresa Temmen used an online survey as part of her master's thesis to investigate the situation. She paid particular attention to the influence and interaction of values, value orientations and attitudes on the willingness to consume selected meat alternatives.
Exciting insights into scientific work
"One of the interesting things for me was to contrast cultured meat and plant-based meat substitutes," Temmen says. "Both products are quite similar on the one hand, but fundamentally different on the other. That was also evident in the survey results."
"I particularly liked the fact that after developing the research questions and hypotheses, I was allowed to plan, implement and evaluate the associated data collection myself”, she continues. “This gave me the chance to go through the entire process of scientific work. In addition, she says, it was very exciting that more than eight hundred people from all over Germany took part in the survey. "This was only possible because of Florian Fiebelkorn and the Biology Didactics group - thank you again!"
About Maresa Temmen: Maresa Temmen studied biology and physics at Osnabrück University and recently completed her traineeship. After the summer vacations, she will start her first job at a grammar school in Mettingen.
About the "BestMasters" series: With a publication in the "BestMasters" series, Springer Verlag says it honors " best master’s theses which have been completed at renowned Universities in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland". The series covers current issues from various fields of research in natural sciences, psychology, technology, and economics.
