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Review article, why science communication, and does it work a taxonomy of science communication aims and a survey of the empirical evidence.

• 1 Department of Philosophy, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
• 2 Department of Philosophy and Science Studies, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

In this paper, we offer a novel conceptual framework of some of the most important aims for science communication efforts found in the contemporary literature on science communication. We identify several distinct aims present in the literature such as generating public epistemic and moral trust, generating social acceptance, and enhancing democratic legitimacy, and we discuss some of the relations between the different aims. Finally, we examine whether and, if so, to what extent these different aims can be said to have been successfully reached in practice and find that the empirical literature regarding the evaluation of science communications efforts is scarce. We conclude by suggesting that science communicators be attentive to formulating their communicative aim(s) in more precise terms, as well as conduct systematic studies of the effectiveness of their communicative efforts.

Introduction

Although there seems to be a discrepancy between which aims they highlight in their analysis, there appear to be a growing interest among scholars in identifying and analyzing the aims of science communications efforts. For instance, Burns et al. (2003) included five such aims as part of their influential definition of science communication (i.e., increased awareness, enjoyment, interest, opinion-forming, and understanding) and discussed some of the relations between them. Sánchez-Mora (2016) has proposed that communicating “[…] that science exists, feeling that science is attractive, understanding that it is interesting, or being aware that science is part of one's identity.” (p. 2) are the four major objectives of public communication of science. And in a recent report by The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine the five general goals for science communication were identified as (i) sharing recent findings and excitement for science, (ii) increasing public appreciation of science, (iii) increasing knowledge and understanding of science, (iv) influencing the opinions, policy preferences or behavior of people, and (v) ensuring that a diversity of perspectives about science held by different groups are considered when solutions to societal problems are pursued ( National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017 ). However, while attention is thus being paid to the aims of science communication, the current literature scrutinizing said aims seems to have several important limitations. First, the analyses of the aims are not sufficiently fine-grained, and several aims therefore remain implicit and unarticulated. Second, the aims that have been identified by scholars are often undertheorized in the sense that they are not specified in philosophically precise terms. Third, and in part as a consequence of the other limitations, the relations and interaction between aims remain underexplored. As an initial step toward amending these shortcomings, we propose a conceptual framework for explicating some of the most important aim(s) of science communications efforts observed in the contemporary science communication literature, a framework that draws on standard concepts from epistemology and political philosophy. This approach carries the advantage of providing a more fine-grained and analytically rich way of distinguishing the underlying aims of different communicative efforts than has hitherto been offered. We identify eight conceptually distinct aims often explicitly or implicitly advocated in the literature, discuss possible or likely causal connections between them and discuss how they might be conflicting. Finally, we examine the empirical literature to assess to what extent evidence exists that the various aims have been successfully reached by communicative efforts in practice.

Two Paradigms of Science Communication

At a general level there seems to be agreement in the literature that models for science communication can be divided into two paradigms. Some models view one-way transmission of information about science from experts to the public as the appropriate way to communicate science. Other models in contrast view dialogue and deliberation between the public, experts and decision-makers as the proper way of engaging in science communication (for a similar distinction, see Bauer et al., 2007 ; Trench, 2008 ; Brossard and Lewenstein, 2010 ; Akin and Scheufele, 2017 ). We shall refer to the former cluster of models as the dissemination paradigm and we shall term the latter the public participation paradigm . One important way that the paradigms differ is by emphasizing different aims for science communication. Another key point of divergence lies in the methods or outlets that the paradigms recommends. We shall mostly focus our attention on the former point of divergence in sections A Conceptual Framework of Science Communication Aims and Do Various Models of Science Communication Achieve the Aims? In this section, we shall attempt to answer the question of what methods the models belonging to the dissemination paradigm and the public participation paradigm propose as means to communicate science.

The Dissemination Paradigm of Science Communication

As noted above models belonging to the dissemination paradigm see science communication as a matter of (successfully) transmitting information about science from scientific experts to the public. The most prominent views assume that the transmission is to be effectuated through education in a formal school setting or (re)education through mass media ( The Royal Society, 1985 ; Ziman, 1991 ; Bauer et al., 2007 ). The implications of the focus on formal education includes the initiation in many countries of extensive revisions of national science curricula ( Turner, 2008 ; Brossard and Lewenstein, 2010 ) as well as a call for universities to take steps to encourage alumni to continue to be educated about science after they graduate ( Miller, 2012 ). Implications of the focus on dissemination through the mass media include the production of popular science books, television documentaries, science magazines and, more recently, communication through science blogs and websites ( Bubela et al., 2009 ; Gastil, 2017 ).

More recently, scholars have emphasized that the context that a particular person is in can affect his or her understanding and evaluation of science. Thus, some models belonging to the dissemination paradigm recognize the heterogeneity of multiple publics in society and the consequences that this may have on how people respond to communicative efforts. These models stress that, while linear transmission of information is still the preferred method of communication (see e.g., Nisbet, 2010 ; Druckman and Lupia, 2017 ), we should recognize that individuals “process information according to social and psychological schemas that have been shaped by their previous experiences, cultural context, and personal circumstances” ( Brossard and Lewenstein, 2010 , p. 14).

In a further development, scholars have recently started investigating how one might disseminate scientific information in such a way that it counteracts or circumvents some of the known problems with achieving effective science communication associated with the social and psychological make-up of different audiences. Humans have a tendency to employ cognitive heuristics, which in some cases lead to a biased selection and interpretation of information about science. This phenomenon has recently received much attention from scholars (see e.g., Kahan, 2010 ; Kahan et al., 2010 ; Nisbet, 2010 ; Druckman and Lupia, 2017 ). In the same vein, some work is exploring ways to harness our use of heuristics in ways that are conducive to successful communicative efforts (see e.g., Correll et al., 2004 ; Nisbet and Scheufele, 2009 ; Kaplan and Dahlstrom, 2017 ).

The Public Participation Paradigm of Science Communication

The focus for most models of science communication in the public participation paradigm is on facilitating two-way communication, that is, dialogue and (sometimes) deliberation between the public, experts and policy-makers ( Gastil, 2017 ) 1 . Numerous ways of doing so have been suggested, ranging from familiar approaches such as public hearings and referendums ( Rowe and Frewer, 2000 ), to the perhaps less familiar approaches such as Science Shops ( Wachelder, 2003 ), Scenario Workshops ( Andersen and Jæger, 2001 ), Citizens Juries ( Smith and Wales, 1999 ), Planning Cells ( Hörning, 1999 ), Deliberative Polling ( Fishkin et al., 2000 ; Fishkin, 2003 ), and many others ( Gastil and Levine, 2005 ; Rowe and Frewer, 2005 ). In order to provide a clearer picture of how some of the models belonging to this paradigm are structured and how diverse they can be, we shall briefly review two paradigmatic examples of models licensed by this paradigm, namely Citizens Science and Consensus Conferences.

Citizen Science are projects that “enlists the public in collecting large quantities of data across an array of habitats and locations over long spans of time” ( Bonney et al., 2009 , p. 977). To put it differently, Citizen Science is, as the name indicates, science conducted by citizens 2 . Development and implementation of Citizens Science Projects are recommended to follow the following nine steps (see Bonney et al., 2009 ). First, the scientific question that one wish to have answered is formulated. Often this question will have a large spatial and/or temporal scope and is tailored in such a way that gathering the necessary observations can be done without having expert knowledge. Second, a team of experts are formed to oversee the project and process the data collected. Third, protocols, data forms and educational material is developed, tested, and refined. The fourth and fifth steps are the recruitment and training of participants. The former is usually achieved by participants responding to e.g., newspaper articles and public service announcements and the latter is done by providing participants with project instructions and background material. The sixth step is accepting, editing and displaying the raw data collected by the participant to the public and to the participants themselves. Seventh, the raw data is analyzed and interpreted by the team of experts. Dissemination of the results of the project through publications in scientific journals, technical reports to specific audiences and the projects website is the eight step. And the last step is measuring the whether the project has had the desired effect.

The Danish or democratized version of the Consensus Conference 3 involves recruiting a group of 10–16 citizens who are selected on the basis several socio-demographic criteria i.e., age, gender, education, occupation, and area of residence (what follows draws on the work of Grundahl, 1995 ; Andersen and Jæger, 1999 ). There are two important conditions for being included. First, a would-be participant can have no expert knowledge about the issue. And second, participants can not have any special interest in the case under consideration, e.g., be an interest group representative. The nominated group of citizens is provided with information about the topic of the consensus conference and is tasked with formulating the question that is to be addressed at the conference. In addition, the citizen group has a decisive influence on the selection of experts that is invited to testify before the group. After the conference, the group issues a public report stating their conception of what the knowns and unknowns of the area under consideration are, as well as the general principles they recommend for policy-making. The preparatory stage, in which participants receive education pertaining to the subject and formulate the central questions usually requires 4 weekends, while the consensus conference itself spans over 3–4 days.

In this section we have described two paradigms of science communication found in the science communication literature, the dissemination paradigm and the public participation paradigm, focusing on the modes of communication and outlets licensed by them. In the next section, we turn to our proposal for how the aims of science communication efforts can be more clearly conceptualized.

A conceptual framework of science communication aims

Note some caveats. First, we are not claiming that our conceptual framework exhausts all goals that might be set for science communication efforts. Instead, we modestly argue that the aims reviewed and analyzed below represent some of the most common, although sometimes not fully articulated, aims. Second, some of the aims analyzed below are causally related, that is, sometimes a communicative effort might be directed at one aim in order to achieve some other aim. In the analysis we have noted some of the most common views on causal relations between aims, but we do not claim to have exhausted all ways that communicative aims might be causally related. Third, and related to the former point, we recognize that in practice communicative efforts are sometimes designed with the intention of achieving multiple aims, and that these aims will often be overlapping. However, in order to achieve a greater level of analytical clarity we shall discuss each of the identified aims individually.

We submit that the following largely conceptually distinct aims of communicative efforts can be located in the literature:

(1) Improving the population's beliefs about science.

Improving the population's belief 4 about science encompasses achieving an increase in the number of people who hold accurate beliefs about new scientific findings, scientific facts, scientific methods, what possibilities and limitations science is subject to, what the risk associated with scientific endeavors are, etc. As might be clear, setting as an aim the improvement of the population's beliefs about science can involve attempting to reach several different (sub)aims such as e.g., reducing the number of false beliefs, increasing the number of true beliefs and increasing the number of people who have correct beliefs, or one can aim for specific distributions of these improvements. Historically, the motivation behind this aim was that nation-wide surveys from several countries revealed that the majority of the public lack basic knowledge of scientific facts, scientific processes, as well as knowledge about implications of science for society and individuals. Or, in the terminology often employed by scholars drawing conclusions from such studies, the majority of the public was found to be scientifically illiterate ( Durant et al., 1989 ; Miller, 1998 , 2016 ). To mention just a few examples of basic scientific facts that the majority of the public was found to be ignorant of the 1988 The National Science Foundation's Science and Engineering Indicators showed that only 46% of Americans knew that the earth travels around the sun in a year. And in the most recent from 2018 only 48% percent knew that electrons are smaller than atoms ( National Science Board, 2018 ). While improving the belief states in the population has been conceived of as an end to pursue in itself (see e.g., The Royal Society, 1985 ), it is more often mentioned in the literature as being an essential causal factor that promotes other aims of science communication, the most prominent being the claim that it is necessary (or even sufficient) for the generation of pro-science-attitudes in the population [see (2)]. Another prominent view is that improving the beliefs in (at least part of) the population is necessary for the enhancement of democratic legitimacy [see (8)]. The aim of improving beliefs about science might, however, in some cases turn out to work against other aims. For instance, and as will be discussed more at length in section Do Various Models of Science Communication Achieve the Aims? empirical studies have shown that improving the belief states in the population sometimes causes people to have more negative attitudes toward science.

(2) Generating social acceptance.

The aim of generating social acceptance of science as a whole or a certain part of science entails attempting to achieve a distribution of certain kinds of pro-attitudes in the population to funding, governance, and application of science. As already noted, this aim is sometimes assumed to be a likely consequence of improving the belief states of the population ( The Royal Society, 1985 ). More precisely, the lack of understanding of science is said to be seen by some members of the scientific community and policymakers to be the explanation for why the institutions of science are experiencing a lack of public and material support ( Bauer, 2009 ; Brossard and Lewenstein, 2010 ). The lack of understanding of science is also taken to explain why presenting evidence of scientific consensus about an issue subject to controversy in the public, e.g., that climate change is anthropogenic or the risk associated with employing novel technologies, is often not sufficient to quiet public criticism (stated but not endorsed by Kahan, 2015 , 2017 ). The underlying assumption is that if the knowledge deficit is addressed then one will simultaneously succeed in amending the attitude deficit toward science [sometimes expressed by the axiom “the more you know, the more you will love it” ( Bauer et al., 2007 )].

Interestingly, however, Burns et al. (2003) have suggested that “a change of attitude toward science […] may at some later time lead to enhanced scientific literacy” (p. 192). According to these authors the causal relationship between these two aims is thus sometimes reversed, and generating social acceptance of science might be necessary for improving the belief states in the population.

(3) Generating public epistemic and moral trust.

In the often mentioned House of Lords report “Science and Society” of 2000 ( House of Lords, 2000 ) an important rationale behind the lordships' call for an enhanced focus on science communication was to attempt to dissolve what they termed a “crisis of trust” ( Durant, 1999 ; Miller, 2001 ; Wynne, 2006 ; see also Dietz, 2013 ). “Trust” is, of course, an ambiguous term which can refer to at least two different kinds of attitudes and consequently generate two distinct, but in practice often overlapping, aims of science communication. It is useful here to distinguish between epistemic trust and moral trust (for a similar distinction see e.g., Borchelt, 2008 ; Earle, 2010 ; Fiske and Dupree, 2014 ; Myers et al., 2017 ).

As we understand it, an individual has epistemic trust in a scientific institution when the individual is strongly inclined to believe that what the institution communicates as true and epistemically justified, unless the individual is exposed to salient defeaters, that is, specific reasons to or evidence suggesting that institution in question is not trustworthy. There is public epistemic trust in a scientific institution when most people in a polity, tend to believe what it communicates, again short of defeaters. The science communication aim of promoting public epistemic trust is the aim of bringing about that the communicative efforts emanating from scientific institutions is generally believed by the citizenry, e.g., concerning scientific findings, limitations or potentials of research undertaken, that the scientists working on the research are competent and have the necessary expertise, etc. By contrast, an individual has moral trust in some scientific institution when the individual is inclined to believe that the institution is behaving in a morally proper manner, even when one has no specific information about this.

As others have noted, generating moral trust has received considerably less attention than its epistemic counterpart ( Weigold, 2001 ; Bauer et al., 2007 ). However, the positive value of generating the confidence among the public that scientific institutions (or the scientists working in said institution) are acting in a morally proper way has recently caught the attention of some scholars, albeit they often employ a different terminology ( Borchelt, 2008 ; Earle, 2010 ) 5 . From a conceptual point of view, there seems to be reason to believe that this aim is causally connected to aim (1) and (2). If, for instance, the public lacks epistemic trust in an institution then the public's beliefs will likely not be improved when receiving scientific information from this institution. In the same vein, if there is a lack of public moral trust in an institution this will likely mean that what the institution communicates will not be socially accepted.

(4) Collect citizens' input about acceptable/worthwhile research aims and applications of science.

Collecting citizens' views on what research aims and applications of science should be pursued is another aim often stressed by scholars and practitioners of science communication. One important motivation underlying this aim is the view that scientific experts often have too narrow a view vis-à-vis citizens' of what social and ethical concerns scientific research or application might give rise to ( Andersen and Jæger, 1999 ; House of Lords, 2000 ; Jackson et al., 2005 ). As Andersen and Jæger (1999) explains, an important reason for involving citizens in consensus conferences is that “[t]hey tend to see it [i.e., science and technology] from the perspective of their own life: how could this possibly affect my work situation, my health and the life of my family?” (p. 334). Thus, when aiming to collect citizens' views, the hope is to broaden the scope of concerns considered when e.g., funding decisions are made or when policy decisions regarding the regulation of science are decided. Wynne (2006) has suggested that pursuing this aim of science communication is also likely to contribute to generating trust in science and scientific endeavors [see (3)], and it might be speculated that this aim might also be instrumental in generating social acceptance [see (2)].

(5) Generating political support for science.

The aim of generating political support for science can be understood as promoting a favorable distribution of pro-attitudes toward science among policy-makers, organizations and/or institutions that may have an impact on the funding, governance and application of science. This aim can be usefully compared to the aim reviewed above concerning the collection of the public's input about acceptable/worthwhile research aims and applications of science. If one adopts the latter aim it suffices for the success of one's communicative effort that the public's input is somehow made available to decision-makers and others. However, the aim we are considering here stresses that only when the communicative effort succeeds in attaining a favorable distribution of pro-attitudes among decision-makers, expressed by e.g., enactment of a recommended policy or funding of a particular part of scientific research, should it be considered reached (see e.g., Fiorino, 1990 ; Rowe and Frewer, 2000 ). As Rowe and Frewer (2000) puts it in the context of evaluating the effectiveness of public participating methods “[t]he output of the procedure should have a genuine impact on policy and be seen to do so” (p. 14). This aim is sometimes pursued not only for its own sake, but also because it is believed to be an important part of enhancing the democratic legitimacy of policy decisions regarding science [see (8)] (see e.g., Russell, 2013 ).

(6) Collect and make use of local knowledge.

Collecting and making use of knowledge located in different parts of the public is another aim found in the literature (see e.g., Jasanoff, 1997 ; Jackson et al., 2005 ). Roughly, the idea is that citizens sometimes have local knowledge, that may act as important correctives to scientific views. In Fiorino's words, members of the public may have insights about “problems, issues and solutions that experts miss” ( Fiorino, 1990 , p. 227). One proponent of this aim has for example described how local knowledge held by sheepherders in northwest England would have saved the scientists from designing their studies in a way that ultimately confounded their experiments, had the knowledge of sheepherders not been ignored by the scientists ( Wynne, 1998 ; see also Irwin, 1995 ). One central concern that setting the collection and employment of local knowledge as the aim of science communication is thought to address is thus to improve the quality of scientific knowledge as well as activities informed by science. Another more recent example is the efforts to incorporate patients' knowledge in healthcare settings in terms of e.g., in reaching a correct diagnosis, choosing an appropriate treatment scheme, identifying side-effects of it and how to address them ( Ocloo and Matthews, 2016 ). And patients' knowledge about their local community is sometimes employed to design research protocols sensitive to the social stigma that may accompany certain conditions, as well as more generally aiding scientists in formulating question in a way that is acceptable to a given local community ( Brett et al., 2012 ). It often seems implicitly assumed that if scientific views are infused with lay-knowledge this might lead to increased trust [see (3)] and/or promote social acceptance of science [see (2)] (see e.g., Jasanoff, 1997 ).

(7) Make use of distributed knowledge or cognitive resources to be found in the citizenry.

Another aim for some models of science communication is to make use of distributed knowledge or cognitive resources found among citizens. Notice that this aim is different from the aims of collecting and make use of public knowledge (6) as well as the aim of receiving input from the public on worthwhile research aims (4), as the focus for the aim under consideration is to have citizens contribute to the investigation of a question of scientific or social relevance. Put it in formal terms, there is no necessary connection between aim (4) or (6) and the present aim. One could, for instance, pursue either of the latter aims without involving the citizenry in the scientific investigation. And, conversely, it seems possible that the citizenry can be directly involved in a scientific investigation in which the knowledge held by the citizenry is not considered and in which no input is received concerning the desirability of the research aims. One way that this aim is cashed out is by having citizens act as informants on, for example, the state of the local wildlife ( Bonney et al., 2009 ) and their own or others' health condition ( Bonney et al., 2014 ). Another example is crowdsourcing-science games that have participants aiding in deciphering scientific puzzles, such as the structure of and interaction between proteins, through online games.

It is often argued that making use of the citizenry in these fashions can aid in improving beliefs about science held by (a part of) the population [see (1)].

(8) Enhance the democratic legitimacy of funding, governance and application of science or specific segments of science.

The final aim of science communication identified in the literature is that of enhancing the democratic legitimacy of decisions regarding funding, governance, and application of science or specific parts of science. Broadly speaking democratic legitimacy requires that decisions made in political institutions are morally acceptable or justifiable in terms of democratic values ( Peter, 2017 ). Democratic legitimacy is thus different from social acceptance and political support (as we use the term). Democratic legitimacy of science thus concerns a distinct normative property of democratic decisions regarding funding, governance and application of science or specific segments of science. Furthermore, because it seems that several additional requirements must be met by a communicative effort in order for it to qualify as an enhancement of democratic legitimacy, this aim is not reducible to the aim of generating political support for science. That is, achieving this latter aim is often not considered sufficient for having achieved the aim under consideration.

Andersen and Jæger (1999) argue that an important reason why Consensus Conferences should be used is that “in a democratic society citizens are supposed to have the opportunity to influence important decisions affecting their lives” (p. 334). More generally, proponents of this aim assume that the democratic legitimacy of the policy decisions regarding science require, or is at any rate enhanced, if these decisions have been subjected to designated deliberative processes that are employed in addition to the ordinary democratic and deliberative processes (see e.g., Andersen and Jæger, 1999 ; Einsiedel and Eastlick, 2000 ; Einsiedel, 2008 ; O'Doherty and Burgess, 2009 ; Russell, 2013 ).

However, little agreement exists among scholars regarding the requirements that the deliberative processes should fulfill in order to promote democratic legitimacy. Proposals that seem to have gained at least some support include securing the representativeness of the lay-public that participates in the deliberative process, ensuring that the deliberative process is transparent for the participant as well as the wider public, ensuring that the participants have access to relevant information, and making sure that the policy recommendations arising from the deliberations generate a response from policymakers ( Einsiedel and Eastlick, 2000 ; Rowe and Frewer, 2000 ; Hamlett, 2003 ). In addition, some scholars argue that it should also be ensured that participants involved in the deliberative processes are in fact deliberating and not engaging in some other form of conversation ( Cobb, 2013 ; O'Doherty, 2013 ). While it is often only mentioned in passing, it is often assumed that a casual relation exists between the aim of promoting democratic legitimacy and the aims of generating social acceptance [see (2)] and trust [see (3)].

Do various models of science communication achieve the aims?

In section A Conceptual Framework of Science Communication Aims, we identified and analyzed several conceptually distinct aims that have explicitly or implicitly been guiding science communication efforts or which have been argued to do so by other theorists. In this section, we examine the evidence concerning the ability of communication efforts to reach their aims. As briefly mentioned above, some aims are more emphasized by the dissemination paradigm, some more by the public participation paradigm, while others are common ground.

Improving the belief states in the population is one of the main aims of the dissemination paradigm ( Brossard and Lewenstein, 2010 ). Is there any empirical evidence that the proposed methods of linear transmission of information from the scientific experts to the public, either through education in a formal school setting or informal education through e.g., the media, has achieved this aim? One way to answer this question would be to focus on the development of the level of civic scientific literacy in countries that have employed these methods. One such country is the United States in which efforts have been made to reduce the “gap of knowledge” about science through formal education. For instance, the US remains one of few countries that requires all college students to take at least a year of science as part of their education ( Miller, 2010 ). Summarizing the last thirty-some years of the findings from measurements of the US population's civic science literacy, Miller has recently noted that:

During the last decade, the proportion of American adults who qualify as being scientifically literate remained at about 28%. Prior to 2007, national surveys had shown a steady increase from approximately 10% in 1988 to 28% in 2008 ( Miller, 2016 , p. 4).

So, while the period from 1988 to 2008 showed an improvement of the belief states in the population, no improvement has been recorded for the period from 2008 to 2016. Miller speculates that the observed increase in the proportion of scientifically literate adults seen in former period, as well as the plateauing observed in the latter period, is partly a function of the level of completed of college-level science courses and bachelor degrees (which presumably showed an increased in the former period but not in the latter period). However, Miller himself acknowledges that more work is needed to establish that his speculations are more than just that ( Miller, 2010 , 2016 ).

Several potential sources for informal science education of the public exists, and we cannot here examine them all. Instead we shall examine the known effect of one such source, the mass media e.g., television, science magazines, the internet, etc. The question is whether there is empirical evidence supporting the view that they succeed in improving the belief states of the population. Depending on whether studies focus on the short-term or long-term cognitive media effects one seems to get different answers to this question. For instance, when investigating the former Miller et al. (2006) found that a considerable portion of American adults who had watched one or more local news shows containing science and health stories showed “substantial story recall and information retention” (p. 216) in the weeks after the shows had aired. However, if one turns to studies of the media's long-term effect on knowledge levels, the effect becomes less clear. While some doubt that there is such a connection (see e.g., Ten Eyck, 2005 ) other studies have shown that the mass media does indeed seem to have some long-term influence on the public level of knowledge about biotechnologies ( Bauer, 2002 ; Bonfadelli, 2017 ) and global warming ( Kahlor and Rosenthal, 2009 ).

While most models belonging to the public participation paradigm often do not state it as a weighty aim to improve the belief states of the population per se , models such as e.g., the Consensus Conference and the Deliberative Opinion Poll, go to great lengths to ensure that its participants are well-informed about competing arguments and relevant scientific facts about the issue under consideration. In fact, the inventor of the Deliberative Opinion Poll, James Fishkin, has recently stated that after every Deliberative Poll he and his team have conducted, there has been a considerable increase in the level of knowledge that the participants have about the issue under consideration compared to control groups ( Fishkin, 2009 ). Another example is Citizen Science projects, which often have as one of their explicit aims to educate their participants about scientific facts and methods. And while it is stressed by scholars that more work is necessary to understand and harness the full potential of Citizen Science projects as educational efforts, studies have shown promising results in terms of heightening the level of domain specific scientific knowledge among the participants ( Bonney et al., 2009 ; Crall et al., 2013 ). So, insofar as it ever becomes feasible to employ these activities on a greater scale, they might well aid in improving the wider publics beliefs.

Generating pro-attitudes toward science is another aim often emphasized in the dissemination paradigm. Indeed, one of the main reasons for improving the belief states in the population seems to be the idea that this would lead to more favorable public attitudes toward science. However, the exact nature of the relationship between knowledge about and attitudes toward science has proved to be complex. For instance, in an influential study Evans and Durant (1995) conducted an analysis of a sample of around 2000 British respondents' understanding of and attitudes toward science. On this basis they concluded that they had,

“[…] discovered some evidence that higher levels of knowledge are indeed associated with more supportive attitudes toward science. This appears to hold both for science in general and for what we have termed ‘useful science' [i.e., areas of research that are considered socially relevant e.g., cancer research and nuclear energy]. In morally contentious and non-useful areas of research, however, the well informed are more strongly opposed to funding than are the less well informed” (p. 70).

So, while the authors had indeed demonstrated there to be a connection between knowledge of and attitudes toward science, these findings also question whether promoting the public's understanding of science would, as some science communicators and scientists hope, result in more public support for science. Other studies have largely confirmed this conclusion ( Durant et al., 1989 ; Sturgis and Allum, 2004 ; Allum et al., 2008 ). What these studies seem to indicate is that one could rely on models in the dissemination paradigm if one wished to cultivate positive attitudes toward science in general or in non-contentious areas of science such as e.g., cancer research. But that mere linear dissemination of scientific information does not generate pro-attitudes, and might even be counterproductive (that is, generate negative attitudes), when it comes to research deemed non-useful (e.g., astronomy) or morally controversial (e.g., stem cell research or global warming). As one might expect, this phenomenon has attracted much attention from scholars and we cannot here engage in a comprehensive review of the studies conducted to explain, counteract or circumvent the negative effect that increased levels of knowledge can have on individuals' attitudes toward certain areas of science (for an excellent overview, see Akin and Scheufele, 2017 ). In the context of the present discussion, it will suffice to say that the question of how one can generate social acceptance toward science remains an open and highly complex one.

(3) Generation of public epistemic and moral trust.

While numerous studies have been conducted to assess the public's levels of epistemic and moral trust in science in general (e.g., Besley, 2014 ), and regarding specific areas of research and scientists and scientific institutions (e.g., Myers et al., 2017 ), the question of what factors mediate and promote trust is just beginning to be uncovered (e.g., Nisbet and Scheufele, 2009 ; Fiske and Dupree, 2014 ; Nadelson et al., 2014 ; Hendriks et al., 2016c ; Myers et al., 2017 ). Consequently, despite the aim of promoting epistemic and moral trust arguably being widely endorsed in the public participation paradigm (see e.g., Dietz, 2013 ), the research on whether communicative efforts are in fact promoting these aims is limited. However, a recent study ( Hendriks et al., 2016a ) found that the readers of an article on a science blog (an outlet licensed by the dissemination paradigm) ascribed a considerably higher level of what they termed the integrity and benevolence dimensions of trust (which is roughly similar to what we have here termed moral trust ) when the scientist who had authored the article disclosed a flaw in the study herself (as opposed to another scientist doing so) (see also Jensen, 2008 for similar findings). However, the study also found that when the scientist disclosed the flaw herself there was a considerable drop in what they termed the expertise dimension of trust (roughly equivalent to what we have termed epistemic trust) , indicating that communicative efforts aiming at enhancing public moral trust can have a negative influence on the public's level of epistemic trust. A similar study the same authors ( Hendriks et al., 2016b ) found that including a discussion of the possible ethical implications of scientific findings (in this case, the potential moral problems with the use of cognitive enhancers) in a blogpost had an noticeable positive impact on the perceived moral trustworthiness of the scientist doing the blogging. They also found that if the ethical aspects where introduced by the author himself, the participants ascribed him more moral trust than when they were introduced by another expert. The authors took this to indicate that scientist who blogs about science “should not shy away from also discussing the implications or applications of scientific results, even if this discussion might raise ethical concerns” (p. 1004). Taken together these studies indicate that it might be possible to employ models belonging to the dissemination paradigm in order to generate public moral and epistemic trust, although more research is surely needed.

Surprisingly, it seems that virtually no work has been done to assess whether models in the public participation paradigm succeed in generating moral and epistemic trust, although this is an often-stressed aim. Perhaps one reasons for this shortcoming in the science communication literature in general is due to a defective approach to trust measurement similar to the one identified by Boschetti et al., when attempting to identify empirical guidelines for building trust among stakeholders in the context of environmental sustainability projects. As they note:

rust is rarely measured […] as a goal of itself and even more rarely is this done before, during and after a project. As a result, it is difficult to objectively evaluate its contribution to project success or impact. In the literature, it is frequently assumed that trust and engagement are a welcome by-product of the main research activities if effective outcomes are achieved. The opposite is often also assumed to be true (‘Engagement failed; it shows that the team did not build trust'). In other words, often trust is ‘deduced' from the outcome of the project itself, with no actual measurement of trust ( Boschetti et al., 2016 , p. 855f, references omitted).

We do not doubt that there are exceptions to this commonsensical (and tautological) approach to trust-building and measurement described here. However, it seems that in the majority of science communication initiatives within the public participation paradigm only few efforts to measure the epistemic or moral trust are being attempted.

(4) Collect and make use of the publics input about acceptable/worthwhile research aims and applications of science.

Due to this particular aim of science communication requiring multiway communication to be reached, it is emphasized almost exclusively by the public participation paradigm. As noted, many models in this paradigm involve the participants pronouncing their considered views on what aspects of the development or use of science should be considered by decision-makers and sometimes what they believe to be the preferable course of action (see e.g., Andersen and Jæger, 1999 ). Often this statement is made through a written statement or a popular vote (or both) which is then presented to the relevant decision-makers. Some of the models are even designed to ensure that relevant decision-makers are obligated to respond to the announcement. In this sense, at least, it seems that most of the models do indeed achieve this goal, although it often remains unclear what, if any, impact these processes have on actual decisions made by decision-makers.

Recall that proponents of this aim argue that we should only consider communicative efforts successful with respect to this aim if they attain a favorable distribution of pro-attitudes among decision-makers that makes an actual difference, say in the enactment of a recommended policy. The number of studies of this form of impact is scarce and mainly concerns models belonging to the public participation paradigm. For instance, an often cited example of such influence is the 1989 Danish Board of Technology consensus conference on the mapping on the human genome, which resulted in legal regulations that banned companies' from obtaining DNA health profiles from their current and potential employees ( Joss, 1998 ; Andersen and Jæger, 1999 ) 6 . Another approach that has demonstrated the ability to effect policy issues is the Deliberative Opinion Poll. In China, for instance, the use of it resulted in the reprioritization of government resources from infrastructure to other more basic necessities, e.g., sewage treatment ( He and Warren, 2011 ; Gastil, 2017 ), and the South Korean government has recently employed and followed the outcome of one regarding the question of whether to expand the countries number of nuclear powerplants ( Chung, 2018 ).

Collecting and making use of local knowledge is an aim emphasized most by models under the public participation paradigm. While it seems that evaluations of this particular aim are generally scarce, there has been some studies, mostly in the field of environmental management and public and patient involvement, attempting to answer the question of whether local knowledge is collected and used to correct or inform scientific views. For example, Beierle (2002) reviewed 239 published case studies of diverse forms of stakeholder involvement through e.g., public hearings, workshops, citizen juries, etc. in environmental decision-making. He found, among other things, that in the majority of the cases lay participants were indeed “adding new information, ideas and analysis” (p. 739) which sometimes led to the correction of experts assessments [see also Reed (2008) for an overview of similar studies]. And, as already mentioned above, some studies have employed knowledge of local communities provided by patients in the design of research protocols ( Brett et al., 2012 ). So, even though the evaluative data pertaining to this aim is limited, there seems to be reason for optimism among proponents of it.

(7) Make use of distributed resources to be found in the citizenry.

Making use of distributed resources found among the citizenry is an aim pursued by at least two of the models belonging to the public participation paradigm, namely, Citizen Science projects and public and patient involvement. And some projects seem fairly successful in achieving this aim. For instance, the Citizen Science project eBird , a project using an online checklist to have participants aid in “documenting the presence or absence of all species of North American birds in all locations at all times of year” ( Bonney et al., 2009 , p. 978), receive more than five million observations made by citizens every month. And this data that has been employed in more 90 peer-reviewed articles and books ( Bonney et al., 2014 ). Another example is the online-platform Zooniverse that, according to its website, have over a million members who together have collected hundreds of millions of classifications of, to name just a few projects, animals in the Serengeti, the sex of beluga whales, new exoplanets and solar storms 7 As is the case with eBird, the data collected through Zooniverse projects has been used in several scientific articles and books. Examples of public patient involvement that seem to achieve this aim, are studies in which the patients interview other patients for research purposes ( Elliott et al., 2002 ; Godfrey, 2004 ).

(8) Enhance democratic legitimacy of funding, governance and application of science or specific segments of science.

Enhancing democratic legitimacy is an aim emphasized almost exclusively by scholars writing about models of science communication in the public participation paradigm, and practitioners employing those models. Is there any empirical evidence that communicative efforts such as the consensus conference or citizens' juries do indeed enhance democratic legitimacy of policy decisions regarding funding, governance and application of science? Empirical research on this question is faced by two interrelated challenges. First, recall, that the idea is that democratic legitimacy is enhanced when specific deliberative processes meeting special criteria are conducted in the right way. Although scholars have made some suggestions regarding what conditions should met in order for the special deliberative processes to be considered properly conducted (and thus act as a enhancer of democratic legitimacy), it remains an underexplored area in the science communication literature ( Abels, 2007 ). Second, and perhaps more importantly, even if scholars are able to identify such conditions, questions pertaining how to evaluate whether they have been met immediately arise. For instance, in order to evaluate a condition stating that participants should be deliberating during the course of the process (a condition often endorsed by proponents of this aim) one needs fairly clear criteria for when something is to count as deliberation, we need a method to investigate empirically whether it occurs during the deliberative processes. The same challenge of course arises for other conditions believed to be necessary for the properly conducted special deliberative processes. In sum, it seems that the normative as well as the empirical framework for evaluating whether the employment of the special deliberative processes is indeed enhancing democratic legitimacy is yet to be developed fully. Consequently, it is currently not possible to confirm or disconfirm empirically whether these processes are indeed achieving their aim.

Concluding remarks

The aim of this paper has been to take the initial steps toward developing a taxonomy of aims of science communication efforts and subsequently surveying the empirical literature to investigate whether these aims are reached in practice. That is, we have attempted to answer the questions also posed in the title of the paper: why engage in science communication, and does it work? To do so, we first identified two very different paradigms of science communication by focusing on the modes of communication licensed by different science communication models. Models belonging to what we termed the dissemination paradigm of science communication employ one-way transmission of scientific information, while the mode of communication licensed by what we termed the public participation paradigm is two- or multi-way communication. We then reviewed the science communication literature focusing on the explicit or implicit aims adhered to by scholars and practitioners, deploying models from the two paradigms and then analyzed these aims using standard concepts from epistemology and political philosophy. We found that using this approach made possible a more fine-grained distinction between the aims and how they may be casually related than is usually found in the science communication literature. With these aims in hand, we then turned to the empirical literature in an attempt to determine whether these aims could be said to have been reached in practice by models belonging to either of the two discerned paradigms. Our main finding is that the literature attempting an empirical evaluation of science communications efforts is scarce. While there is a growing bulk of literature focusing on the aim of enhancing social acceptance of science and improvement of beliefs in the population, considerably less work has gone into evaluating other important goals, such as enhancing moral and epistemic trust and democratic legitimacy. We suspect that at least part of the explanation is to be found in the relative lack of conceptual clarity in the explicitly and implicitly stated aims of science communication. Providing a conceptual clear statement of aims of science communication, and how they may interact, might be cumbersome, but is necessary if we wish to move beyond mere conjectures and speculations regarding the success of science communication efforts. It is our hope that the present paper provides a useful starting point for science communicators when formulating their communicative aim(s), as well as acting as a reminder of the evaluative challenges science communicators will face in the absence of such work.

Author Contributions

SH is the first author of the paper, while KK has provided most of the conceptual part of the paper.

This work was funded by Novo Nordisk Fonden, grant number NNF17SA0031368, and by University of Copenhagen.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

1. ^ One might object that science communication efforts that are dialogic in nature and those that are deliberative in nature differ sufficiently in their approach to participation so as to merit separate discussion. In our view, however, the difference between these two approaches to science communication is a matter of degree rather than kind. That is, both science communication efforts that employ dialogic tools and those that employ deliberative ones can be classified as being participatory, but the latter might be so to a greater degree than the former. For this reason, we categorize both approaches as belonging to the public participation paradigm of science communication.

2. ^ We employ this rather narrow definition of Citizens Science, i.e., as a distribution of cognitive labor, because this seems to be the dominant interpretation of it made by scholars conducting the projects.

However, as a reviewer pointed out to us, a broader interpretation of the terms has been offered by Irwin (1995) who, roughly, understands it as a point of exchange of different forms of knowledge and expertise rather than merely a distribution of cognitive labor.

3. ^ As opposed to the version used in the United States by the National Institute of Health which includes only medical experts tasked with the assessment of medical technologies ( Grundahl, 1995 ).

4. ^ We here intend the term belief to be understood in its standard philosophical meaning which denotes the stance one takes toward something if one regards it as true.

5. ^ Earle (2010) employs the term relational trust to denote the kind of trust concerned with the intentions of others, and Borchelt (2008) includes both the integrity and dependability of scientic institutions and scientists to be important components of trust.

6. ^ For a list of other instances and non-instances of political impact of Consensus Conferences in Denmark see Klüver (1995 , p. 44).

7. ^ https://www.zooniverse.org/

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Keywords: science communication, democratic legitimacy, trust, consensus conference, science literacy, Citizen Science projects

Citation: Kappel K and Holmen SJ (2019) Why Science Communication, and Does It Work? A Taxonomy of Science Communication Aims and a Survey of the Empirical Evidence. Front. Commun. 4:55. doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2019.00055

Received: 02 July 2019; Accepted: 08 October 2019; Published: 25 October 2019.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2019 Kappel and Holmen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Klemens Kappel, kappel@hum.ku.dk

This article is part of the Research Topic

Theoretical and Practical Issues in the Epistemology of Science Journalism

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Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Professional Papers

This collection includes theses, dissertations, and professional papers from the University of Montana Department of Communication Studies. Theses, dissertations, and professional papers from all University of Montana departments and programs may be searched here.

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

COMEDY, CAMARADERIE, AND CONFLICT: USING HUMOR TO DEFUSE DISPUTES AMONG FRIENDS , Sheena A. Bringa

Navigating Toxic Identities Within League of Legends , Jeremy Thomas Miner

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

UNDERSTANDING MEDIA RICHNESS AND SOCIAL PRESENCE: EXPLORING THE IMPACTS OF MEDIA CHANNELS ON INDIVIDUALS’ LEVELS OF LONELINESS, WELL-BEING, AND BELONGING , Ashley M. Arsenault

CANCELING VS. #CANCEL CULTURE: AN ANALYSIS ON THE SURVEILLANCE AND DISCIPLINE OF SOCIAL MEDIA BEHAVIOR THROUGH COMPETING DISCOURSES OF POWER , Julia G. Bezio

DISTAL SIBLING GRIEF: EXPLORING EMOTIONAL AFFECT AND SALIENCE OF LISTENER BEHAVIORS IN STORIES OF SIBLING DEATH , Margaret C. Brock

Is Loss a Laughing Matter?: A Study of Humor Reactions and Benign Violation Theory in the Context of Grief. , Miranda B. Henrich

The Request Is Not Compatible: Competing Frames of Public Lands Discourse in the Lolo Peak Ski Resort Controversy , Philip A. Sharp

Patient Expectations, Satisfaction, and Provider Communication Within the Oncology Experience , Elizabeth Margaret Sholey

Psychological Safety at Amazon: A CCO Approach , Kathryn K. Zyskowski

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Discourse of Renewal: A Qualitative Analysis of the University of Montana’s COVID-19 Crisis Communication , Haley Renae Gabel

Activating Hope: How Functional Support Can Improve Hope in Unemployed Individuals , Rylee P. Walter

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

THE HOME AS A SITE OF FAMILY COMMUNICATED NARRATIVE SENSE-MAKING: GRIEF, MEANING, AND IDENTITY THROUGH “CLEANING OUT THE CLOSET” , Kendyl A. Barney

CRISIS AS A CONSTANT: UNDERSTANDING THE COMMUNICATIVE ENACTMENT OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE WITHIN THE EXTENSION DISASTER EDUCATION NETWORK (EDEN) , Danielle Maria Farley

FOSTERING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE IN COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION: EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE FOUNDATIONS TRAINING , Shanay L. Healy

Belonging for Dementia Caregivers , Sabrina Singh

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Making the Most of People We Do Not Like: Capitalizing on Negative Feedback , Christopher Edward Anderson

Understanding the Relationship Between Discursive Resources and Risk-Taking Behaviors in Outdoor Adventure Athletes , Mira Ione Cleveland

Service Failure Management in High-End Hospitality Resorts , Hunter A. Dietrich

Fear, Power, & Teeth (2007) , Olivia Hockenbroch

The climate change sublime: Leveraging the immense awe of the planetary threat of climate change , Sean D. Quartz

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

The Relationship Between Memorable Messages and Identity Construction , Raphaela P. Barros Campbell

Wonder Woman: A Case Study for Critical Media Literacy , Adriana N. Fehrs

Curated Chaos: A Rhetorical Study of Axmen , Rebekah A. McDonald

THE ROLE OF BIPOLAR DISORDER, STIGMA, AND HURTFUL MESSAGES IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS , Callie Parrish

Cruising to be a Board Gamer: Understanding Socialization Relating to Board Gaming and The Dice Tower , Benjamin Wassink

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

STEAMED: EXAMINATIONS OF POWER STRUGGLES ON THE VALUE FORUM , richard E. babb

Beyond the Bike; Identity and Belonging of Free Cycles Members , Caitlyn Lewis

Adherence and Uncertainty Management: A Test Of The Theory Of Motivated Information Management , Ryan Thiel

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Redskins Revisited: Competing Constructions of the Washington Redskins Mascot , Eean Grimshaw

A Qualitative Analysis of Belonging in Communities of Practice: Exploring Transformative Organizational Elements within the Choral Arts , Aubrielle J. Holly

Training the Professoraite of Tomorrow: Implementing the Needs Centered Training Model to Instruct Graduate Teaching Assistants in the use of Teacher Immediacy , Leah R. Johnson

Beyond Blood: Examining the Communicative Challenges of Adoptive Families , Mackensie C. Minniear

Attitudes Toward Execution: The Tragic and Grotesque Framing of Capital Punishment in the News , Katherine Shuy

Knowledge and Resistance: Feminine Style and Signifyin[g] in Michelle Obama’s Public Address , Tracy Valgento

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

BLENDED FRAMEWORK: BILL MCKIBBEN'S USE OF MELODRAMA AND COMEDY IN ENVIRONMENTAL RHETORIC , Megan E. Cullinan

THE INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL DRAMAS ON PATIENT EXPECTATIONS OF PHYSICIAN COMMUNICATION , Kayla M. Fadenrecht

Diabesties: How Diabetic Support on Campus can Alleviate Diabetic Burnout , Kassandra E. Martin

Resisting NSA Surveillance: Glenn Greenwald and the public sphere debate about privacy , Rebecca Rice

Rhetoric, participation, and democracy: The positioning of public hearings under the National Environmental Policy Act , Kevin C. Stone

Socialization and Volunteers: A Training Program for Volunteer Managers , Allison M. Sullivan

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

THIRD PARTY EFFECTS OF AFFECTIONATE COMMUNICATION IN FAMILY SUBSYSTEMS: EXAMINING INFLUENCE ON AFFECTIONATE COMMUNICATION, MENTAL WELL-BEING, AND FAMILY SATISFACTION , Timothy M. Curran

Commodity or Dignity? Nurturing Managers' Courtesy Nurtures Workers' Productivity , Montana Rafferty Moss

"It Was My Job to Keep My Children Safe": Sandra Steingraber and the Parental Rhetoric of Precaution , Mollie Katherine Murphy

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Free Markets: ALEC's Populist Constructions of "the People" in State Politics , Anne Sherwood

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

COMMUNICATIVE CONSTRUCTION OF EXPECTATIONS: AN EXAMINATION OF EXPECTATIONS REGARDING MOTHERS IN NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTION , Jordan A. Allen

Let’s talk about sex: A training program for parents of 4th and 5th grade children , Elizabeth Kay Eickhoff

"You Is The Church": Identity and Identification in Church Leadership , Megan E. Gesler

This land is your land, this land is my land: A qualitative study of tensions in an environmental decision making group , Gabriel Patrick Grelle

The Constitution of Queer Identity in the 1972 APA Panel, "Psychiatry: Friend or Foe to Homosexuals? A Dialogue" , Dustin Vern Edward Schneider

The Effect of Religious Similarity on the Use of Relational Maintenance Strategies in Marriages , Jamie Karen Taylor

Justice, Equality, and SlutWalk: The Rhetoric of Protesting Rape Culture , Dana Whitney Underwood

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Collective Privacy Boundary Turbulence and Facework Strategies: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of South Korea and the United States , Min Kyong Cho

COMMUNICATING ARTIFACTS: AN ANALYSIS OF HOW MUSEUMS COMMUNICATE ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY DURING TIMES OF CONTROVERSY AND FINANCIAL STRAIN , Amanda Renee Cornuke

Communication Apprehension and Perceived Responsiveness , Elise Alexandra Fanney

Improving Patient-Provider Communication in the Health Care context , Charlotte M. Glidden

What They Consider, How They Decide: Best Practices of Technical Experts in Environmental Decision-Making , Cassandra J. Hemphill

Rebuilding Place: Exploring Strategies to Align Place Identity During Relocation , Brigette Renee McKamey

Sarah Palin, Conservative Feminism, and the Politics of Family , Jasmine Rose Zink

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

Salud, Dignidad, Justicia: Articulating "Choice" and "Reproductive Justice" for Latinas in the United States , Kathleen Maire de Onis

Environmental Documentary Film: A Contemporary Tool For Social Movement , Rachel Gregg

In The Pink: The (Un)Healthy Complexion of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month , Kira Stacey Jones

Jihad as an Ideograph: Osama bin Laden's rhetorical weapon of choice , Faye Lingarajan

The Heart of the Matter: The Function and Relational Effects of Humor for Cardiovascular Patients , Nicholas Lee Lockwood

Feeling the Burn: A Discursive Analysis of Organizational Burnout in Seasonal Wildland Firefighters , Whitney Eleanor Marie Maphis

Making A Comeback: An Exploration of Nontraditional Students & Identity Support , Jessica Kate McFadden

In the Game of Love, Play by the Rules: Implications of Relationship Rule Consensus over Honesty and Deception in Romantic Relationships , Katlyn Elise Roggensack

Assessing the balance: Burkean frames and Lil' Bush , Elizabeth Anne Sills

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

The Discipline of Identity: Examining the Challenges of Developing Interdisciplinary Identities Within the Science Disciplines , Nicholas Richard Burk

Occupational Therapists: A Study of Managing Multiple Identities , Katherine Elise Lloyd

Discourse, Identity, and Culture in Diverse Organizations: A Study of The Muslim Students Association (University of Montana) , Burhanuddin Bin Omar

The Skinny on Weight Watchers: A Critical Analysis of Weight Watcher's Use of Metaphors , Ashlynn Laura Reynolds-Dyk

You Got the Job, Now What?: An Evaluation of the New Employee Orientation Program at the University of Montana , Shiloh M. A. Sullivan

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

Because We Have the Power to Choose: A Critical Analysis of the Rhetorical Strategies Used in Merck's Gardasil Campaign , Brittney Lee Buttweiler

Communicative Strategies Used in the Introduction of Spirituality in the Workplace , Matthew Alan Condon

Cultures in Residence: Intercultural Communication Competence for Residence Life Staff , Bridget Eileen Flaherty

The Influence of Sibling Support on Children's Post-Divorce Adjustment: A Turning Point Analysis , Kimberly Ann Jacobs

TALK ABOUT “HOOKING UP”: HOW COLLEGE STUDENTS‟ ACCOUNTS OF “HOOKING UP” IN SOCIAL NETWORKS INFLUENCES ENGAGING IN RISKY SEXUAL BEHAVIOR , Amanda J. Olson

The Effect of Imagined Interactions on Secret Revelation and Health , Adam Stephens Richards

Teaching Intercultural Communication Competence in the Healthcare Context , Jelena Stojakovic

Quitting versus Not Quitting: The Process and Development of an Assimilation Program Within Opportunity Resources, Inc. , Amanda N. Stovall

Theses/Dissertations from 2008 2008

IMAGES AS A LAYER OF POSITIVE RHETORIC: A VALUES-BASED CASE STUDY EXPLORING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN VISUAL AND VERBAL ELEMENTS FOUND ON A RURAL NATURAL RESOURCES NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION WEBSITE , Vailferree Stilwell Brechtel

Relational Transgressions in Romantic Relationships: How Individuals Negotiate the Revelation and Concealment of Transgression Information within the Social Network , Melissa A. Maier

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

THE SOCIALIZATION OF SEASONAL EMPLOYEES , Maria Dawn Blevins

Friends the family you choose (no matter what: An investigation of fictive kin relationships amoung young adults. , Kimberly Anne Clinger

Public relations in nonprofit organizations: A guide to establishing public relations programs in nonprofit settings , Megan Kate Gale

Negotiated Forgiveness in Parent-Child Relationships: Investigating Links to Politeness, Wellness and Sickness , Jennifer Lynn Geist

Developing and Communicating Better Sexual Harassment Policies Through Ethics and Human Rights , Thain Yates Hagan

Managing Multiple Identities: A Qualitative Study of Nurses and Implications for Work-Family Balance , Claire Marie Spanier

BEYOND ORGANIC: DEFINING ALTERNATIVES TO USDA CERTIFIED ORGANIC , Jennifer Ann von Sehlen

Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006

Graduate Teaching Assistant Interpretations and Responses to Student Immediacy Cues , Clair Owen Canfield

Verbal negotiation of affection in romantic relationships , Andrea Ann Richards

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

Art of forgiveness , Carrie Benedict

"We shall fight for the things we have always held nearest our hearts": Rhetorical strategies in the U.S. woman suffrage movement , Stephanie L. Durnford

War on Terror Middle-East peace and a drive around the ranch: The rhetoric of US-Saudi diplomacy in the post-911 period , J. Robert Harper

What do you mean by competence?: A comparison of perceived communication competence among North Americans and Chinese , Chao He

Rhetoric of public interest in an inter-organizational environmental debate: The Fernie mining controversy. , Shelby Jo. Long

Investigation of the initiation of short-term relationships in a vacation setting. , Aneta Milojevic

"It 's the other way around"| Sustainability, promotion, and the shaping of identity in nonprofit arts organizations , Georgi A. Rausch

Child left behind: An examination of comforting strategies goals and outcomes following the death of a child , Kelly R. Rossetto

Profile of the modern smokejumper| A tension-centered lens on identity and identification , Cade Wesley Spaulding

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Science communication research and practice currently promote strategies oriented towards creating audience engagement around scientific content. Consequently, science communication needs to continually explore new methodologies that enable audiences’ participation in order to meet their interests and needs. The present study combines qualitative and participatory action research (PAR) methods guided by decolonial epistemologies to develop a co-designed project with public health, nutrition and sports science researchers to recruit young audiences from Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, and from Cuenca, Ecuador. The main goal of this study was to create strategies to motivate young audiences’ engagement and interest in adopting healthy habits. This article focuses on the study’s research design in order to provide guidelines and procedural recommendations for facilitating a co-design approach for developing science communication initiatives targeting children and teenagers in Ecuador and the United States. As we demonstrate, the PAR approach for co-design leads to useful outcomes: (1) the incorporation of decolonial theory guidelines in participatory research; and (2) the development of science communication strategies that combine online and offline activities to put in dialogue scientists and their audiences, ultimately resulting in mutual learning, thus allowing scholars and practitioners to explore in practical terms how to co-design improved strategies.

Main article text

Introduction.

Over the last three decades, science communication scholars have shown that to promote a deeper engagement with audiences and the broader public, it is necessary to develop research that empowers and includes audiences’ voices and interests around different scientific disciplines ( Bucchi and Trench, 2008 ; Holliman et al., 2009 ).

More frequently, science communication research and practice have used linear-communication theoretical models, such as diffusion of innovations ( Rogers, 2010 ) and the transmission model ( Leach et al., 2008 ). Similarly, the deficit model ( Bucchi, 2008 ) has inspired research approaches that focus primarily, or even exclusively, on disseminating and transmitting, in a one-way fashion, scientific information from academia to the public. However, these models do not consider opening the discussion between academic researchers and members of the public. Thus, each of these research traditions has led to research and practice that explore unilateral communication of science, while ignoring the need to create deeper audience engagement.

Currently, science communication is defined as the use of appropriate communication skills, media and dialogue to produce audience awareness and practical responses around scientific information ( Bowater and Yeoman, 2013 ). Yet, science communication needs to build sustainable science–society relationships, and it can benefit from exploring community engagement. More frequently, community engagement has been applied in health contexts, through communication and education to target populations, and it can be used alone or as part of larger strategies ( O’Mara-Eves et al., 2013 ).

This article presents an alternative research design to establish an egalitarian research framework based on qualitative and participatory action research (PAR), decolonial epistemologies and media theories used in combination. Thus, such a framework can motivate collaboration among researchers and young audiences as co-researchers using egalitarian procedures to manage power relations. The overall goal of the study was to explore how to co-design engaging strategies around two already existing nutrition and physical activity programmes.

The evolution of science communication: from dissemination to public engagement

Science communication research movements have evolved from the deficit paradigm to dialogue models. In the 1990s, science communication was referred to as ‘scientific literacy’ ( Gregory and Miller, 1998 ) or as ‘public understanding of science’ ( Stilgoe et al., 2014 ), approaches using the deficit model as their theoretical foundation ( Bucchi, 2008 ). The deficit model assumed that: (1) all scientifically relevant knowledge belongs to academics; (2) exposing people to scientific content will alone motivate its appreciation; and (3) the point of departure for science communication is the assumption that audiences do not have the knowledge or competencies to understand science ( Bowater and Yeoman, 2013 ).

Consequently, science communication developed under the deficit model primarily were dissemination initiatives. Scientific findings were then passed along from researchers to communication practitioners at research institutes or universities, with the assumption that these communication co-workers would then relay the findings to the public – despite the fact that few practitioners had prior training in science communication ( Friedman et al., 1999 ). Compounding the problem, researchers were involved minimally, if at all, in the communication strategy design or the actual content to be relayed to the public. As a result, not surprisingly, science content was frequently misreported by the media ( Stilgoe and Wilsdon, 2009 ).

However, by the 1990s, the alternative theoretical paradigm of dialogic models emerged, emphasising dialogue between scientists and the public. Dialogic models proved to be so successful that the Royal Society proposed its members set aside deficit models and adopt dialogic approaches to successfully promote public engagement ( Holliman et al., 2009 ). Since the turn of the twenty-first century, science communication studies have regularly suggested that scholars explore methodological alternatives to overcome the barriers that the deficit model erected between scientists and society.

Additionally, practitioners of science communication for public engagement ( Bucchi and Trench, 2008 ; Bowater and Yeoman, 2013 ), the newest research movement, suggest that PAR as a methodological paradigm can support the development of more inclusive research and, in so doing, can overcome many contemporary science communication challenges. Over the last two decades, most enquiry has addressed introduction of dialogical practices among researchers and their target audiences ( Brossard et al., 2005 ), for example, through citizen science ( Cooper, 2016 ), by focusing on media reporting on science ( Dunwoody, 2014 ), or by exploring the effects on audiences of using social media to communicate science, as well as such effects on scientific content itself ( Brossard and Scheufele, 2013 ; Lee et al., 2018 ).

Participatory action research in science communication research

PAR has its origins in two interrelated traditions: Kurt Lewin’s (1946) action research and Paulo Freire’s 1970s approach to co-learning processes ( Freire, 2010 ). Lewin proposed a cyclical problem-solving process, through promoting people’s participation in planning, analysing and implementing different solutions ( Minkler, 2004 ), while Freire (2010) proposed a process whereby the researcher acts as a facilitator of dialogue and capacity building for empowering people through interaction, interchange and mutual learning. Following these traditions, PAR studies unite experts and citizens around topics of mutual interest, with the two groups working as co-researchers participating in an egalitarian framework to find solutions to a given problem ( Chevalier and Buckles, 2013 ; Hacker, 2013 ).

PAR methodologies, then, can bring new opportunities to science communication, allowing scholars and members of the public to jointly explore the perspectives of society around science. Science communication studies can, and must, also consider creating resources and learning spaces ( Davies et al., 2009 ) and promoting dialogue among scientists and audiences of different ages, cultures and education ( Van Dijck, 2003 ).

Decolonial research and community engagement

Developing a decolonial enquiry means designing and conducting research from a community/society standpoint ( Denzin and Lincoln, 2008 ; Smith, 1999 ). Researchers must be open to sharing voice and agency with the people involved in research, doing so by facilitating the collaborative development of objectives, research questions, data collection and analysis.

In contrast to Western epistemologies, in decolonial research, people are not merely seen as human subjects of study from which to extract data but, rather, as equal co-researchers ( Smith, 1999 ; Tuck, 2009 ). People participate in the research process by using their experiences, cultural history and local knowledge to discuss and address issues related to their needs and/or interests ( Walsh, 2017 ). Here, the role of researchers is to facilitate and co-design along with the people a process whereby they dismantle their struggles and promote capacity building through tools to support participants ( Smith, 2013 ).

In terms of epistemology, decolonial methodologies facilitate designing research procedures that reflect critically upon Western systems of knowledge and those systems’ tools, and that set as priorities the participation of society and researchers ( Denzin and Lincoln, 2008 ). The tensions between researchers and vulnerable populations are the result of decades of unequal relations dictated by knowledge extraction and appropriation ( Jojola, 2008 ; Tuck, 2009 ). Therefore, significant challenges exist in terms of establishing relationships of mutual trust and openness to collaboration for researchers who aim to work with culturally diverse populations.

Decolonial scholars in the Global North ( Porter, 2010 ; Smith, 2013 ) have applied the principle of humanising the enquiry process in culturally diverse populations affected by oppressive power structures that relegate them to vulnerable positions. Also, science communication researchers must always acknowledge the contextual reality of ‘scientific rigour’ and ‘objectivity’ as they affect people, and become aware of the harms inflicted through the very process of scientific research, in order to correct for these unintended effects. Consequently, researchers are challenged not only to create knowledge, but also to suggest practical solutions leading to tangible actions that people can take to overcome their problems.

Regarding community engagement, Chambers (1994) describes the conundrum faced by all academics attempting to employ PAR and development paradigms. Participation has three uses and meanings: cosmetic labelling, to look good; co-opting practice, for securing local action and resources; and empowering process, to enable people to do things themselves.

PAR methodologies have been shifting from a top-down paradigm towards a diversified, bottom-up approach. This implies a transfer of power from ‘uppers’, who have been dominant, to ‘lowers’ (people, institutions and disciplines) who have been subordinate. Participatory approaches to research and development tend to hide underlying changes in philosophy and practice. Empowerment of marginalised people requires reversals and changes in an egalitarian fashion. Thus, PAR approaches face significant challenges to their use as they require changes to bureaucratic procedures and cultures, including more participatory management ( Chambers, 1994 ).

Chambers’ (1994) work spotlights the shortcomings of traditional participatory research and development, and it sets the stage for an evolving PAR paradigm which seeks to eliminate the stark divisions between ‘uppers’ and ‘lowers’, to cast community members as co-researchers, and to bring PAR into the emergent realm of relational communication and relational dialectics 2.0; that is, placing PAR and health promotion squarely in the dialogic arena ( Chambers, 1994 ; Halliwell, 2016 ).

The literature of community engagement privileges the role of those impacted by particular issues in the solution of those same problems. Proceeding from theories of marginalisation and its consequences, Aday et al. (2015) designed and implemented collaborative community health interventions in Central America, engaging undergraduate university students and community members to identify emergent health issues and their solutions. Having employed participatory and community action methodologies, Aday et al. (2015 : 22–3) wrote:

we believe that the theory of marginalization and alienation helps us to better understand the context in which we find the observed problems of health and health care. This theoretical understanding prepares us to ask better, more focused questions about our own role in the communities in which we work.

The efforts of Aday and colleagues (2015) increased communication among community residents, facilitated the development of co-researchers’ construction of community-endorsed five-year plans, and established partnerships with regional and international groups. This approach informed our own work with young students from marginalised communities as co-researchers.

Our work also comports with the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion ( World Health Organization – Europe, 1986 : n.p.), which lists as prerequisites for health ‘peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice, and equity’. The two case studies described in this article sought to base their work in social justice and equity through the recruitment of co-researchers from the ecosystem being studied and by granting those co-researchers roles in all aspects of the studies, including the definitions of research questions and intervention methodologies.

Here we describe two case studies, including their functions and goals. We also discuss the methodological design for the study, and its research procedures, as guided by several decolonial theories, along with data collection tools and analysis.

Eat Smart to Play Hard

Eat Smart to Play Hard (ESPH) is a health promotion and research programme created and implemented by the University of New Mexico (UNM) Prevention Research Center, a research department affiliated with the UNM Health Sciences Center. ESPH is a four-year-old programme focused on reducing obesity and preventing chronic disease in children, families, schools and communities across the state of New Mexico. ESPH applies a social marketing approach, deployed through a series of interventions at elementary public and private schools and in households, which motivates children to adopt healthy nutrition and physical activities.

ACTIVITAL is a health promotion programme that is the product of interdisciplinary research groups at the Biosciences Department at the University of Cuenca in Ecuador and at the VLIR Programme Cooperation Alliance, Belgium. Children in Ecuador face a variety of issues that fall under the heading of unbalanced nutrition. Among these are disproportionate food intakes, driven by cultural perceptions, and unhealthy cooking habits of parents and households that dramatically influence the health conditions of children and teenagers. ACTIVITAL developed a socio-ecological approach towards health behaviour change in order to educate children, teenagers and their families about healthy nutrition, using school interventions that included group games, workshops, medical controls and the collaborative development of a healthy eating recipe book.

PAR and qualitative research adapted to science communication

For this study, PAR and qualitative research were combined. The qualitative research framework used multiple case-study designs ( Yin, 2012 , 2017 ) with embedded units of analysis. This approach is regarded as more robust than that taken in single case studies because its results can be compared and thus can provide more generalisable data in two or more different scenarios ( Herriott and Firestone, 1983 ). Consequently, the multiple case study enabled the researchers and co-researchers to identify differences, similarities and cultural considerations, and to develop science communication strategies, in two research programmes – one in the US and one in Ecuador – which have similar goals. The embedded units of analysis respond to each of the research questions. It is important to clarify that the design of the study was developed by the researchers. To follow the criteria of PAR studies developed using decolonial guidelines, the researchers and co-researchers initiated their collaboration after their recruitment to discuss research questions and procedures for the co-design participatory workshops and data analysis.

Self-reflexivity practices and designing a participatory science communication study

This study was designed as a collaboration among researchers and young audiences; for this reason, it was crucial to incorporate self-reflexivity practices for the researchers. As the PAR framework promotes egalitarian agency and participation of audiences, researchers were required to acknowledge their privilege and power, and how they would position themselves in the study in relation to the audiences for the health programmes. For this purpose, we combined guidelines suggesting decolonial considerations by Andrea Smith (2013) in order to develop a practice of self-reflexivity prior to finalising the overall research design and approach to audiences. Decolonial guidelines were crucial in managing possible power imbalances among the interests of the researchers and the needs and interests of co-researchers. Consequently, the researchers developed a self-reflexivity exercise before the first contact with the co-researchers of each case study.

The self-reflexivity exercise was conducted by one of the researchers of this study as a one-hour session with the researchers at ESPH in Albuquerque, and later separately with the researchers of ACTIVITAL in Cuenca. We combined the notions of co-learning processes ( Freire, 2010 ) and the critical approach of self-reflexivity ( Smith, 2016 ) for balancing power and agency. Before the session, the researchers were asked to bring a clear written statement acknowledging their privilege in terms of socio-economic characteristics, and describing their personal identifications in terms of gender, race, culture and ideology. During the session, the researchers were asked to disclose how they would use the emerging data to ensure mutually beneficial outcomes for the co-researchers and their programmes, focusing not only on scientific outcomes, but also on activities that would promote healthy habits with young audiences, and provide voice and agency to the co-researchers in the co-design process.

As a result, researchers agreed to the following procedure:

In the first of the four co-design workshops, dedicate time to set the rules with the co-researchers to enhance egalitarian agency and decision making.

Include the co-researchers in refining the research procedures, in order to promote their agency in the co-design process.

Respect the opinions, needs and interests of co-researchers by supporting their ideas and suggestions for replacing specific interventions with new ones oriented to improving the audience´s engagement around the scientific content.

Promote capacity building by teaching co-researchers about the use of participatory data collection tools, addressing co-researchers’ concerns, and countering any emerging misinformation about healthy habits with scientifically validated information.

Ethical considerations

It was crucial to work with former programme participants so that they could provide their suggestions and ideas based on their experiences. Drawing on decolonial practice, it is crucial to understand the reality of audiences, as well as the researchers’ beliefs, to counter power imbalances that might affect the participants, and to reflect on how to address these ( Tervalon and Murray-Garcia, 1998 ).

To practise cultural humility with the purpose of arriving at a deeper understanding of the audiences, we reviewed the formative research studies of each programme to identify the socio-economic characteristics, race, culture and education of each group, as well as their current knowledge about healthy habits in order to reflect on how to create inclusive and egalitarian research procedures ( Chevalier and Buckles, 2013 ).

The protocols for the study were approved by UNM’s Institutional Review Board. All sessions were audio-recorded and documented through a registry of the overall strategy proposal. To protect identities, participants were asked to create nicknames to participate in the study. Data indicated which programme each participant was associated with, but did not indicate personal identifiers.

Research procedures

Here we describe the methodological considerations that research procedures followed.

Co-researcher recruitment and trust building for creating a safe space for co-design

After developing an initial understanding of the audience contexts, we approached each programme in order to request access to the participants. In the case of ESPH, this involved writing to the principals of several Albuquerque high schools; ultimately, we were granted approval for research participation of the students of the Health Leadership High School, a charter school oriented to promoting health sciences careers. During our first visit, we explained the study and made clear to the students that our goal was to promote science communication around health programmes. At the conclusion of our visit, we provided informed consent/assent forms to the students who expressed interest and explained that, since they were underage at the time of the study, they would need the permission of their parents or legal guardians to participate as co-researchers. In the case of ACTIVITAL, the participants were already at least 18 years old. Consequently, we approached them through email; in our initial message, we presented information about the goals of the study, and we invited them to participate voluntarily.

We recruited 10 co-researchers for each health programme. From that point on, all decision making was participatory, to create trust. Together, co-researchers and researchers were guided by the authors of this study to work together to refine the research questions, select the dates and locations for the participatory co-design workshops, and create the policies that would guide the co-design process, as described in Figure 1 . The co-researchers were invited to also provide the researchers with their questions of interest about healthy habits and about the scientific content of the study (that is, concepts, data collection methods, and any other doubts that they had). Responsibilities for the facilitation of the workshops were shared among the researchers and co-researchers.

Rules for teamwork for Eat Smart to Play Hard (Source: Authors, 2022)

Compensation for co-researchers

This study compensated each co-researcher with US$40 in cash, as well as healthy snacks and materials for co-designing strategies.

Research questions

To develop the research questions, the researchers consulted with the co-researchers of both health programmes to agree on questions that addressed their interests. This practice was crucial to ensure a PAR design, reinforce collaboration and put in practice the decolonial guidelines created in the self-reflexivity sessions. The resulting research questions were:

RQ1: How can researchers/scientists of health behaviour studies develop better science communication strategies for public engagement from the perspective of teenage/young-adult audiences?

RQ2: How can teen audience engagement with science/health communication be improved?

RQ1 addresses how to create and develop science communication for public engagement. In this study, we had two focuses related to audience engagement: to evaluate the current communication engagement of the programmes, and to improve teen audiences’ engagement in science and health communication. We analysed collectively whether the suggested activities were effective in engaging young audiences, and how those activities could be improved or changed. RQ2 concerns how to create spaces and opportunities for collaboration among researchers and young people around healthy habits, and how researchers can develop strategies to motivate the audience’s engagement.

Data collection tools

As decolonial epistemologies suggest incorporating participatory methodologies to overcome power imbalances, finding suitable data collection tools was crucial. As Western data collection tools are seen as extracting information from research participants ( Tuck, 2009 ), instead we used participatory data collection tools that use iterative processes for co-constructing knowledge (see Table 1 ).

Detail of data collection tools and co-design sessions (Source: Authors, 2022)

Participatory dialogue was an essential tool, focusing on the value of co-researchers’ knowledge and ‘real-life’ problems ( Coburn, 2005 ) to develop activities, resources and messages that would support healthy habits. We used action-reflection cycles ( McNiff, 2014 ) to facilitate discussions and to organise collective participation, analysis and proposed actions, and thus we were able to more productively identify crucial factors that could influence the implementation of strategies to promote audience engagement (see Figure 2 ).

The action-reflection cycle process (Source: McNiff, 2014 )

Among other PAR data collection tools, we applied participatory diagramming (see Table 1 ), which uses available materials (for example, paper, boards, colour-coded cards) to create charts that connect responses of participants with prompt questions that have the purpose to guide the discussion of co-design workshops guided by a facilitator ( Kesby, 2000 ). PAR diagramming was used to organise the ideas to analyse the current programme’s strategies to connect them to suggestions for improving engagement or to propose new strategies.

We also used asset mapping ( Chapin and Threlkeld, 2001 ), a participatory tool that uses maps to locate specific places that provide resources, and which allows several people to work simultaneously by using online platforms such as Google Maps. To this end, we focused on identifying each city’s information resources, as well as places we could use to organise events and activities to promote physical activity.

Finally, we used Zines ( Chidgey, 2014 ), an arts-based tool that can combine drawings, collage and writing, and which uses simple materials such as paper and magazine cut-outs. Zines served to organise the overall strategies and their corresponding communication conduits and messages in order to motivate the creativity of the researchers and co-researchers.

Data analysis

Open coding was used to analyse the emerging data ( Marshall and Rossman, 2014 ). As this study used PAR tools to co-design strategies, we put in place a system of colour coding to clearly identify and delineate issues, causes, consequences and proposed alternatives. This procedure enabled us to work simultaneously to develop new strategies for each programme.

We identified several themes and subthemes that then allowed us to create communication-practice guidelines for scientists who work on studies that promote healthy habits. Building on the insights of media theories such as two-step flow ( Katz, 1957 ), medium theory ( Collins et al., 2016 ; Meyrowitz, 2009 ) and framing ( Entman, 1993 ; Listerman 2010 ) allowed us to develop recommendations to improve the strategies of each programme.

Regarding the demographics of the overall co-design teams, the three main researchers are a semi-diverse group. The first author is a Latinx female researcher with a PhD who is an assistant professor; the second author is a White male associate professor; and the third author is a White female associate professor. The ages of the researchers range from their 30s to their 70s.

Co-researchers of ESPH were the programme scientists and the children. Most individuals were Latin-Hispanic who were immigrants from Latin America (two programme scientists); there was also one White female scientist. The co-researchers were first-generation Latinos born in the US (three females and three males) ranging in age from 13 to 16; 4 of them were low-income DACA students. (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is a programme of the US Citizenship and Immigration Service that provides youth with a work permit and protects them from deportation as they arrive and stay in the United States; Center for Diversity and Inclusion, Washington University in St. Louis [2018] .)

The ACTIVITAL researchers were two Latinx female scientists who are professors and researchers. The co-researchers were all Latinx (three males and three females) ranging from 18 to 20 years old; they were first-year college students from middle- and low-income families who accessed higher education through government-funded merit scholarships.

Our study evidenced two important streams of findings in each programme: first, specific contextual considerations that influenced audience engagement and the development of co-designed strategies oriented towards improving such engagement; and, second, a set of useful guidelines for science communication for public engagement around health programmes.

In the case of ESPH (see Figure 3 ), we found that the current strategies and tactics were interesting and attractive to audiences. However, some of those tactics did not take into consideration certain limitations within some participants’ households; for example, many New Mexican families lack access to safe public parks or playgrounds. Another chronic limitation is that certain foods, such as fresh vegetables and some protein sources, are prohibitively expensive for low-income families.

Contextual considerations of Eat Smart to Play Hard (Source: Authors, 2022)

We found ACTIVITAL’s programme strategy to be well thought out at the time of its implementation. However, to implement the programme during a time in which social media and other newer communication conduits are increasingly prevalent, it was crucial to create an interactive strategy approach, focused on developing learning for children, teenagers, their families and their teachers. Specifically, a hybrid online–offline approach was suggested which would combine activities and resources that are useful and interesting to ACTIVITAL’s audiences (see Figure 4 ).

Creation of an interactive strategy for ACTIVITAL (Source: Authors, 2022)

Participatory co-design outcomes strategies for ESPH and ACTIVITAL

As a result of the participatory co-design workshop sessions, we developed several strategies to improve audience engagement. In both programmes, balancing power through egalitarian participation provided tangible positive results. Consequently, the study promoted a trust among researchers and co-researchers that facilitated the development of strategies that combined the ideas and creativity of co-researchers and the scientific expertise of researchers.

Spokespeople for health programmes

As noted above, the co-researchers suggested that scientists be the main spokespeople. In the case of ESPH, they created the ESPH Squad – two scientists (one female, one male) who would guide young audiences to learn about the science behind nutrition and physical activity, explaining how healthy foods and physical activity benefit the human body by encouraging growth and managing stress. The co-researchers also recommended including teenagers who resembled the older siblings of the children. Target-age children would also be included as the followers and main characters in the communication materials, shown interacting in the company of their pets.

Both co-design teams of both programmes felt that former programme participants would serve best. To motivate former participants’ engagement, an ‘ambassadors’ programme was proposed: target audience members could sign up by uploading to their personal Facebook profile a video in which they would explain why they wanted to be an ambassador of the programme; participants with the most ‘likes’ would be selected. The winners of the contests would work with the scientists on the new co-designed programme activities.

Engagement activities for audiences

A specific activity co-designed by the ESPH participants was to create a cooking contest promoted with the hashtag #ESPHcooking (see Figure 5 ). In this activity, participants would be invited to upload to social media a picture of themselves cooking a healthy meal with their families and featuring the hashtag on their photographs. The winners would be those who generated the most ‘likes’, and they would win a gift card from grocery stores or sports venues.

Co-designed strategy artwork for the #ESPHcooking contest (Source: Artwork developed by ESPH participants)

Additionally, considering the ESPH participatory co-design team’s confirmation that some low-income families cannot afford healthy food (vegetables, grains and proteins), the team agreed to involve food gardens and food pantries at local schools. To do so, they developed activities soliciting donations of seeds and canned foods, and recruited teachers and parents as volunteers. The team’s main goal was to provide free vegetables and other healthy foods often excluded from families’ grocery shopping due to limited budgets.

In the case of ACTIVITAL, the participatory co-design research team recommended developing a strategy that would combine online resources and outdoor activities. Through asset mapping, the co-design teams located public parks and recreation areas in which free monthly events could be offered. A crucial factor was to bring together children, teenagers, their families and researchers to participate in these fun physical activities, as well as in healthy habits discussion groups.

Communication conduits for audience engagement

The co-design teams suggested that social media profiles – Facebook and Instagram – be created to provide informational resources for parents/caregivers, teachers and children. However, in both programmes, the co-design teams agreed to recommend using Facebook as the primary communication conduit through which underage children would be invited to interact in activities through their parents’ or older siblings’ accounts. The teams also recommended that social media be used by physicians as information tools for parents/caregivers of children and teenagers about healthy habits. The recommended content was healthy recipes for snacks and meals, as well as workout routines. Social media would also engender interactions with scientists and health experts, which could take place in real time and could be monitored and measured for evaluation.

Teenagers on the co-design team also suggested creating an app for registering their physical activity and food intake, allowing participants to keep track of their habits and receive tailored recommendations for avoiding unhealthy behaviours. The app would give participants the option of creating avatars of themselves that would change and adapt according to the habits of the user. Further, the app would be linked with social media resources.

Decolonial and PAR methodological approach outcomes

Incorporating decolonial principles as guidelines for the study procedures enabled the researchers to manage the power relations and possible imbalances. More specifically, decolonial principles through the self-reflexivity guidelines of this study guided the process of working collaboratively with co-researchers and not overstepping their needs or interests.

Science communication for public engagement suggests two avenues for research. One would create spaces for interaction among scientists and the public as a first step towards establishing sustainable relationships that can lead to science–society partnerships ( Bowater and Yeoman, 2013 ). The other suggests a new methodological design for future studies that prioritises dialogue. To this suggestion, several scholars agree that PAR methods are well suited for facilitating an egalitarian framework among scientists and members of the public for mutual collaboration ( Stilgoe et al., 2014 ). The research design of the present study addresses these suggested avenues. Also, in each case study, the findings respond directly to each of the research questions and its units of analysis regarding how to create strategies that promote audience interest and engagement with scientific research about children’s and teenagers’ healthy habits.

At the same time, we found some significant differences and some similarities related to the cultures and contextual factors of the countries. These led us to various implications for the future planning and execution of science communication for healthy habits promotion with young audiences. These are discussed in the following sections.

Understanding the lifestyle dynamics and context of audiences

The two case studies evidenced quite a few differences in cultural and other issues, as well as a few similarities regarding food and nutrition, family dynamics and the use of public spaces. By understanding the data that emerged from the participatory co-design, such as household dynamics, participants’ relationships with their parents, and the available knowledge about and resources for healthy habits available to children and teenagers, the process of creating tailored strategies that addressed their interests and concerns was enriched. The tasks of co-designing messages, choosing incentives and finding useful communication conduits were shared among the researchers and <softenter>co-researchers.

It was also useful to reflect on the complementarity of the health behaviour change frameworks used for each study, such as social marketing ( Shamsi et al., 2014 ) in the case of ESPH and socio-cognitive theory ( Bandura, 2004 ) for ACTIVITAL. For example, the social marketing framework worked well for creating attractive activities and compensations for children, but it required more attention to providing resources for parents, given the needs of low-income households. In contrast, the socio-cognitive theory model was effective in creating learning activities, and it required us to enhance the motivation of children and teenagers through activities that were attractive to them.

Theoretical and methodological guidelines for science communication for public engagement

Media theories can be used as guidelines for science communication research and practice. In the present study, we used communication theories as a framework when analysing the co-designed outcomes of the participatory co-design workshops to organise the science communication strategies for each programme.

The two-step flow theory helped guide our decisions about who might be the most appropriate and successful spokespersons. Interestingly, co-researchers in both locations ultimately concluded that the scientists themselves should be the spokespeople, because they are credentialled researchers who can provide audiences with accurate information. This finding was in line with previous science communication studies, which found that leaders who are non-scientists, and either journalists or public figures, face a higher risk of misshaping the findings and possibly communicating inaccurate information to the public ( Dunwoody, 2014 ).

Medium theory provided the foundations to reflect on which communication conduits were most suitable to impart specific scientific content. So informed, we found it crucial to assess the complexity of the scientific information and how to select the most effective media to make that information clear, understandable and attractive to young audiences. To that end, we explored the specific features that enhance audience engagement on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube ( Collins et al., 2016 ), and we found that children and teenagers expressed interest in interacting directly with researchers through social media for learning about healthy habits. This finding corroborated prior studies showing that social media provide opportunities to open dialogue with society; for example, Twitter and Facebook have offered positive outcomes for researchers who seek to dialogue with non-experts about their research ( Pearce et al., 2015 ). At the same time, each social media platform offers different tools for combining video, graphics, animations and live streaming that can be helpful to researchers in attracting audiences and engaging them in discussions about scientific topics of their interest ( Liang et al., 2014 ; Nisbet and Kotcher, 2009 ).

Framing theory, too, provided a useful approach for designing messages with scientific content by understanding that audiences have different interpretative schemas – frames – that allow them to interpret and make sense of an issue ( Entman, 1993 ). In the case of science communication and scientific journalism, frames help audiences put topics or issues into shared contexts (daily life situations or habits) that are understandable for people ( White, 2013 ). The present study reveals, specifically, that to create content and a messaging strategy for science communication for public engagement, formative research and PAR can be used effectively to identify communication insights, to craft messages, and to determine the language (and tone) that is most suitable to the audiences.

Methodological recommendations

As noted above, the existing literature on science communication for public engagement suggests that dialogical frameworks are best suited for enhancing society’s interest and participation. To plan engagement strategies, it is necessary to investigate and create a comprehensive understanding of a target audience’s demographic and psychographic characteristics so as not to fall into the common traps possible when applying the tenets of deficit, diffusion or transmission models ( Davies et al., 2009 ). In other words, PAR allows scholars to productively tailor useful and engaging science communication strategies.

To this end, further formative research that is designed with an ethnographic-qualitative approach could also provide a greater understanding of audiences, and provide suggestions to be aware of, and sensitive to, participants’ household dynamics and difficulties.

Creation of an interactive strategy approach

The researchers acknowledged the contribution of PAR in their respective programmes to their own education about how those programmes can benefit young people. Key here was the value the co-researchers perceived in having the opportunity to directly interact with scientists and to co-create strategies that would allow them to reach even wider audiences. These acknowledgements support the findings of Dierking et al. (2003) and Wood (2011) that science communication based on dialogic models – and particularly on the transactional model of communication, in which message senders and receivers share common contexts and experiences over time – can be especially effective in getting audiences to adopt healthy habits. Co-designed strategies that operated through communication conduits that promote direct dialogue with their audiences were built on a key finding of scholars of the transactional model: that communication needs to be a frequent and sustained activity. By contrast, communication strategies that are based on only one contact with the audience will not be useful ( Bowater and Yeoman, 2013 ).

In the case of Ecuador, there is significant evidence that social media are increasingly effective tools for science communication. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses of Ecuador ( INEC, 2019 ), 98 per cent of people above the age of 12 have a Facebook account, making that platform an increasingly useful conduit for audience engagement. Nonetheless, low-income Ecuadorians have little access to the internet and to technological devices, meaning that digital communication cannot be seen as the sole solution. At the time of the completion of the present study (2019), only 28.8 per cent of the rural populations had access to a tablet or smartphone. Moreover, these households had only one computer, which was used primarily for educational purposes, and only 36.7 per cent had a Facebook account ( INEC, 2019 ). Consequently, future studies could focus on how to develop science communication for engaging marginalised communities.

It is still necessary to simultaneously consider alternative in-person strategies, combining mass media with social media to amplify messages and boost audience coverage ( Hsu et al., 2018 ), recognising that dialogue takes place not only digitally, but also in person.

Conclusions

Co-designing science communication strategies leads not only to creating resources that are useful for society, but also to new opportunities for strengthening the relationships between scientists and the general public.

Regarding RQ1, which focuses on how science communication can be improved from the perspective of young audiences, strategies to enhance engagement must combine online and offline tactics. While social media, as we have shown, can provide important platforms for achieving collaboration and public engagement, there is still a way to go. The present study shows that audiences want to dialogue with scientists and learn from them through in-person activities and by using digital conduits such as social media. Social media can also serve as strategic conduits for sharing interactive activities that can simultaneously motivate scientists and audiences to engage and enhance all parties’ understanding. Regarding RQ2, we can suggest that PAR methodologies provide opportunities to develop partnerships that can lead to future collaborative research that attends to the needs of local communities with initiatives for social change.

Indeed, PAR research opens opportunities to explore in depth the issues that people face, such as to adopt healthy behaviours, and it can also help to create feasible solutions. This is possible when researchers and their target audiences share an egalitarian space for research. Moreover, the co-design participatory approach facilitates processes in which scientists and members of the public can experience mutual learning around topics of common interest. In order to achieve participation, scientists need to open their studies to public dialogue, and to explore – with the collaboration of audiences – how to create initiatives that provide useful information and resources.

Finally, the willingness of researchers to participate and share their research with the public is a key component for engaging science communication. As this study shows, researchers’ involvement in dialoguing with their audiences and co-designing initiatives are the crucial factors motivating audience engagement.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the Biosciences Department of Universidad de Cuenca and the Social Marketing Team of the Eat Smart to Play Hard programme at UNM Prevention Research Center. Special thanks to the student co-researchers from ACTIVITAL and ESPH.

This project was fully funded by the PhD Fellow Award (2018–19) of the Latin American and Iberian Institute of the University of New Mexico.

Declarations and conflicts of interest

Research ethics statement.

The authors declare that research ethics approval for this article was provided by the UNM IRB ethics board, Approval # [1259243-1], and that it was waivered for publication by protecting the identities of the participants in this study.

Consent for publication statement

The authors declare that research participants’ informed consent to the publication of findings – including photos, videos and any personal or identifiable information – was secured prior to publication.

Conflicts of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest with this work. All efforts to sufficiently anonymise the authors during peer review of this article have been made. The authors declare no further conflicts with this article.

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• Published: 23 July 2021

Establishing a baseline of science communication skills in an undergraduate environmental science course

• Rashmi Shivni 1 ,
• Christina Cline 1 ,
• Morgan Newport 2 ,
• Shupei Yuan 3 &
• Heather E. Bergan-Roller   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4580-7775 1  

International Journal of STEM Education volume  8 , Article number:  47 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Seminal reports, based on recommendations by educators, scientists, and in collaboration with students, have called for undergraduate curricula to engage students in some of the same practices as scientists—one of which is communicating science with a general, non-scientific audience (SciComm). Unfortunately, very little research has focused on helping students develop these skills. An important early step in creating effective and efficient curricula is understanding what baseline skills students have prior to instruction. Here, we used the Essential Elements for Effective Science Communication (EEES) framework to survey the SciComm skills of students in an environmental science course in which they had little SciComm training.

Our analyses revealed that, despite not being given the framework, students included several of the 13 elements, especially those which were explicitly asked for in the assignment instructions. Students commonly targeted broad audiences composed of interested adults, aimed to increase the knowledge and awareness of their audience, and planned and executed remote projects using print on social media. Additionally, students demonstrated flexibility in their skills by slightly differing their choices depending on the context of the assignment, such as creating more engaging content than they had planned for.

Conclusions

The students exhibited several key baseline skills, even though they had minimal training on the best practices of SciComm; however, more support is required to help students become better communicators, and more work in different contexts may be beneficial to acquire additional perspectives on SciComm skills among a variety of science students. The few elements that were not well highlighted in the students’ projects may not have been as intuitive to novice communicators. Thus, we provide recommendations for how educators can help their undergraduate science students develop valuable, prescribed SciComm skills. Some of these recommendations include helping students determine the right audience for their communication project, providing opportunities for students to try multiple media types, determining the type of language that is appropriate for the audience, and encouraging students to aim for a mix of communication objectives. With this guidance, educators can better prepare their students to become a more open and communicative generation of scientists and citizens.

Introduction

Scientists engage in a number of practices in their pursuit of understanding. Having students participate in these same practices—and as early as possible—is vital in fostering future generations of scientists and developing a scientifically literate society (ACARA, 2012 ; American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2011 ; American Chemical Society, 2015 ; Joint Task Force on Undergraduate Physics Programs, 2016 ; NGSS Lead States, 2013 ). One such practice is effective science communication.

Science communication can take many forms and is typically grouped into one of two types depending on the target audience—either a scientific audience or a non-scientific, general audience. While both types of audience-oriented communication are important for scientists and students, the focus of this study is on communicating science with non-experts (abbreviated as SciComm). In the current study, we describe SciComm as the use of appropriate media, messages, or activities to exchange information or viewpoints of science opinion or scientific information with non-experts. Depending on the goal of SciComm, it can be used for “fostering greater understanding of science and scientific methods or gaining greater insight into diverse public views and concerns about the science related to a contentious issue” (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, 2017a , p. 14).

SciComm is an important scientific practice that benefits both scientists and the public. With effective SciComm, the public learns about foundational and modern scientific understanding that can guide personal and societal decisions. Additionally, the public can appreciate the credibility of scientists and the scientific process to trust scientific consensus even if the scientific content is not easily understood. Communication also allows scientists to recruit more people to engage with science as well as to collaborate and learn about issues in need of more research.

As such, scientists are being encouraged to engage in SciComm by their scientific communities and the public (Cicerone, 2006 ; Department of Science and Technology, 2014 ; European Commission, 2002 ; Jia & Liu, 2014 ; Leshner, 2007 ; National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Risk Perception and Communication, 1989 ; Royal Society (Great Britain) & Bodmer, 1985 ), as well as combat the spread of misinformation (Scheufele & Krause, 2019 ). Additionally, surveyed scientists report viewing themselves as important components in societal decision-making (Besley & Nisbet, 2013 ) and commonly communicate with the public (Hamlyn et al., 2015 ; Rainie et al., 2015 ). Moreover, support and focus for more effective SciComm across STEM fields has grown. For example, researchers have investigated how to communicate engineering issues and technological perspectives of science, such as genetic engineering (Blancke et al., 2017 ; Kolodinsky, 2018 ), nanotechnology (Castellini et al., 2007 ), and artificial intelligence (Nah et al., 2020 ).

A pertinent example of scientists practicing effective SciComm was seen throughout the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, where technical experts in virology, epidemiology, data science, etc. took to social media and news media to produce and disseminate evidence-based, accurate health protocols and information about the novel coronavirus (American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), 2020 ). During major events, such as the pandemic, scientists are responsible for an important role in communicating emerging science with the public to ease fears, inform decisions, encourage engagement, and give hope to the future.

Because SciComm is an important practice for scientists, it is also essential that undergraduate science students engage with SciComm (Brownell et al., 2013b ). All college students are expected to become proficient in interpersonal skills, including communication (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, 2017b ), and this is expressly true for students in STEM fields including biology (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2011 ), chemistry (American Chemical Society, 2015 ), physics (Joint Task Force on Undergraduate Physics Programs, 2016 ), engineering (Eichhorn et al., 2010 ; Riemer, 2007 ), technology (Bielefeldt, 2014 ), and math (Saxe & Braddy, 2015 ).

Environmental science is an important context in which to study SciComm skills because it is transdisciplinary—at the intersection of biology, chemistry, physics, and social sciences. Seminal documents in biology (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2011 ; Clemmons et al., 2020 ), chemistry (American Chemical Society, 2015 ), and physics (Joint Task Force on Undergraduate Physics Programs, 2016 ) have explicitly stated the need for helping students develop science communication skills. These seminal documents are being used across the sciences to inform curricula and are relevant in guiding curricula and research in environmental science education. Additionally, environmental science encompasses some vital topics relevant to all of society (e.g., climate change) and thus students learning about these important topics should also be learning about how to share that information with the public. Helping a wide range of students develop science communication skills may help students understand scientific concepts, the process of science, and the skills to engage with science after they are out of school regardless of whether they pursue science-related careers. These outcomes are essential in promoting the science literacy of our students and citizens.

Conceptual framework

When aiming to help students develop skills, it is an important first step to operationalize those skills. In the context of undergraduate life sciences, the 2011 Vision and Change report broadly defined the skills, labeled as core competencies, students should develop in their undergraduate programs (AAAS, 2011 ). Clemmons et al. ( 2020 ) unpacked these core competencies into program- and course-level outcomes. Regarding communication, they define that students should be able to “share ideas, data, and findings with others clearly and accurately”; “Use appropriate language and style to communicate science effectively to targeted audiences (e.g., the general public, biology experts, collaborators in other disciplines)”; and “Use a variety of modes to communicate science (e.g., oral, written, visual).” We expanded those definitions, using evidence-based practices and principles of science communication, to define the key elements of SciComm that are appropriate for undergraduate science students. The resulting Essential Elements for Effective Science Communication (EEES) framework (Wack et al., 2021 ) adapts skills and concepts from the literature (Besley et al., 2018 ; Mercer-Mapstone & Kuchel, 2017 ) and organizes them into four strategic categories of storytelling: “who,” “why,” “what,” and “how” (Fig. 1 ). The full framework is available in Wack et al. ( 2021 ).

Overview of the Essential Elements for Effective Science Communication (EEES) framework (adapted from Wack et al., 2021 ). Elements are organized into interrelated strategic categories of who, why, what, and how. The element of purpose is broken down into important SciComm objectives as defined by Besley et al. ( 2018 )

The framework is further broken down into 13 elements that are organized under these four categories, which we used to assess the students’ baseline SciComm skills. As shown in Fig. 1 , the four categories overlap to represent the interrelated nature of the 13 elements. In order to create effective and cohesive SciComm, each element must be considered in relation to the others. Briefly, we describe the categories and the elements they encompass below.

The elements for who science students should communicate science with include identifying and understanding a suitable target audience and considering the levels of prior knowledge in the target audience. The elements for why science students should communicate science include identifying the purpose and intended outcome of the communication; this element is expanded upon by the important SciComm objectives defined by Besley et al. ( 2018 )—including to increase knowledge and awareness, boost interest and excitement, listen and demonstrate openness, prove competence, reframe issues, impart shared values, and convey warmth and respect. Further, science students should understand the theories of science communication and why science communication is important. The elements of what science students should communicate include focusing on narrow, factual content and situating that content in a relevant context that is sensitive to social, political, and cultural factors. Finally, the elements for how science students should communicate science includes encouraging a two-way dialogue with the audience, promoting audience engagement with the science, using appropriate language, choosing a mode and platform to reach the target audience, and adding stylistic elements (e.g., humor, anecdotes, analogies, metaphors, rhetoric, imagery, narratives, and trying to appeal to multiple senses). See Wack et al. ( 2021 ) for the full framework.

The EEES framework was originally used to guide the development of a lesson for undergraduate biology students in an introductory lab (Wack et al., 2021 ). This framework is relevant here because, while biology is only a portion of the course context in this study (i.e., environmental science), this framework was developed to be broadly applicable to any science students in undergraduate programs. Also, the framework describes the best practices for communicating science; through the lens of the backward design process (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005 ), these best practices can be thought of as learning objectives. Therefore, it is appropriate to then assess student work with the same framework.

• Baseline skills

After operationalizing competencies to provide a clear picture of what instructors should help their students attain, it is also important to understand what baseline skills students have at the start of a lesson; that way, a curriculum can be tailored to skim through honed skills and emphasize weaker skills. Identifying baseline skills, therefore, makes helping students learn these skills as efficiently and effectively as possible (Novak, 2010 ; Quitadamo & Kurtz, 2007 ). A similar argument is well-established in the context of helping students achieve conceptual understanding with the literature on prior knowledge (e.g., Ausubel, 2012 ; Bergan-Roller et al., 2018 ; Binder et al., 2019 ; Lazarowitz & Lieb, 2006 ; National Research Council (U.S.) & Committee on Programs for Advanced Study of Mathematics and Science in American High Schools., 2002 ; Tanner & Allen, 2005 ; Upadhyay & DeFranco, 2008 ); however, assessing skills before a lesson is less commonly discussed in the literature, which we designate as baseline skills .

Assessment is required to identify students’ skills, including their baseline skills. However, to our knowledge, there is very little literature that provides insight into the assessment of undergraduate science students on science communication skills. Kulgemeyer and Schecker ( 2013 ) examined how students communicate science in the limited context of older secondary students communicating physics phenomena to younger students. In another study, Kulgemeyer ( 2018 ) went further by testing older secondary students on audience-oriented SciComm best practices and found that those with more SciComm experience, or more developed baseline skills, were better at discerning an audience’s needs for particular SciComm content than students who had less experience with SciComm but were quite knowledgeable about the content. Other studies related to students and SciComm have measured application of SciComm knowledge with closed-response quiz questions (Wack et al., 2021 ), perceptions and confidence in communicating science (Brownell et al., 2013a ), the value of SciComm (Edmondston et al., 2010a ), and perceptions of SciComm skills (Yeoman et al., 2011 ); but they have not assessed how students demonstrate SciComm skills. More work needs to be done to assess how students communicate science in a variety of contexts (e.g., disciplines, audiences, level of the student) in order to establish a generalized baseline of skills from which to build an effective curriculum.

In this descriptive study, we surveyed baseline SciComm skills of students in an undergraduate environmental science course in order to inform instructors and curriculum designers on how to help similar science students develop SciComm skills. We took an exploratory, qualitative approach to investigate the following research questions:

RQ1- How did these students demonstrate their SciComm skills according to the EEES framework?

RQ2- How did the way these students planned their SciComm compare to how they executed their SciComm projects?

RQ3- Did instructions influence the SciComm skills that these students demonstrated?

We conducted an exploratory case study according to VanWynsberghe and Khan ( 2007 ); our unit of analysis was students’ SciComm skills and our case was one undergraduate environmental science course in which the students demonstrated their baseline skills with a project that included planning and executing a SciComm product.

Study context

The study was conducted at a large 4-year, doctoral-granting, regional comprehensive university in the Midwestern United States with students enrolled in an environmental science course. This course focused on the functioning of ecosystems, the patterns of biological diversity, the processes that influence those patterns over space and time, and how human activities can disrupt those processes. The course included a SciComm project, which we used for this research; however, SciComm was not a focus of the course. Students did not receive formal training on the underlying theories or practices of SciComm relevant to the EEES framework or otherwise; and we did not gather background information on whether students had knowledge from elsewhere to apply to their SciComm projects. We saw this as a unique opportunity to obtain a baseline of SciComm skills.

Study participants were recruited by one author attending a class period early in the semester, describing the study, and asking for their explicit consent. The entire class was given the opportunity to participate in the study, of which 32 (65%) consented. Students were assigned to plan and execute SciComm products, which we analyzed for this research. From the consenting students, 27 plans and 21 products were available for this research. All names listed herein are pseudonyms. Demographics for each of these populations are shown in Table 1 and the result show that they are equivalent. Generally, the samples consisted of more females than males. Most of the students were White/non-Hispanic, juniors, and 18–25 years old. About one-third of the students were first-generation college students and two-thirds were transfer students. Cumulative GPAs averaged 3.1 to 3.3 (with standard deviations of 0.9). The demographics of these students are typical for the university and major, as well as for undergraduate biology students throughout the USA—as compared to data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (Data USA, 2018 ).

As a regular part of the course, students were assigned a project to communicate science with a general, non-scientific audience. Their projects included having students submit a plan to the instructor, who gave individual feedback, and then execute their plan in what we call their product. Assignment instructions and rubric, which were provided to the students when the project was assigned, are available in supplemental materials S 1 and S 2 , respectively. Students were given creative freedom to communicate scientific content—using any means such as presentations, social media, and blogging—to a specific audience of their choosing. The instructions required the students to interact with an audience from the public. Though the assignment was developed solely by the instructor (the researchers and the framework were not a part of the assignment design), there was some overlap with the EEES framework that was explicitly mentioned in the assignment.

Data sources

Several course artifacts and student demographics were collected for this research (Table 1 ). Students’ plans and products were collected to identify which elements of the framework they included as evidence of their baseline skills. The students’ final products are available through the figshare data repository (Bergan-Roller & Yuan, 2021 ). Additionally, we collected the assignment instructions and rubric (supplemental materials S 1 and S 2 ) to identify which elements of the framework were included in order to provide insight into the possible influence that instruction can have on the students’ demonstration of skills. However, we did not analyze the individualized feedback given by the instructor after students submitted their plans as we focused on students’ skills in aggregate.

The plans, products, assignment instructions, and rubric were imported into qualitative software (NVIVO) and analyzed using content analysis which describes the themes in artifacts such as coursework (Neuendorf, 2017 ). First, we conducted a priori thematic analysis by coding for the presence or absence of each of the elements of the EEES framework (codebook provided in Supplemental Materials S 3 ). Three elements were not observable in the products (purpose, prior knowledge, and theory). After the presence of elements was identified, student plans and products underwent further thematic analysis to identify themes in how students addressed the elements of the framework (Braun & Clarke, 2006 ). An excerpt of an example product is presented in Fig. 2 with a description of how it was coded in the figure caption. To ensure the reliability of the codes, two of the authors co-coded all the data. The initial agreement was 83%. All dissimilar codes were discussed to a consensus, and the codebook was revised to clarify the codes. The final codebook is available in supplemental materials S 3 .

Example product from student Zoe. This product was coded to include the following elements with the types and levels indicated in parentheses: audience (general, primarily young adult to adult), content (apex predators and ecological topic; human and biological components), dialogue (social media Q&A and conversations with audience members; high), language (no jargon, mixed formality), mode (remote location; print media), platform (social media, specifically Twitter), and engagement (asks specific questions; low). The product was absent of style, appeal, and context. The elements of prior knowledge, purpose, and theory were not observable for any products

Most students completed the assignment individually; however, when a pair worked together on the assignment, the project artifacts (plans and products) were treated as single artifacts. This work was conducted with prior approval from the institutional review board (#HS17-0259).

Below we describe if and how the elements of the EEES framework appeared in students’ projects (i.e., plans and products). Later, in the discussion, we interpret these descriptions to characterize these students’ baseline SciComm skills. Additionally, we examined the project instructions for alignment with the EEES framework as an indication of how instruction may be able to influence the development of SciComm skills in undergraduate science students.

Presence of SciComm elements

The elements of SciComm that students described in their plans were similar to those demonstrated in their products, but there were a few key differences (Table 2 ). Students described a similar number of elements in their plans (8.0 ± 1.0) as they demonstrated in their products (8.1 ± 0.9), despite all 13 elements being observable in plans but only 10 being observable in products. Most to all the students described the elements of content, platform, mode, audience, dialogue, and engagement in their plans and demonstrated these elements in their products. Additionally, plans and products were similar in how few students included the elements of context and style. Dissimilarities existed in the number of students who described intending to use language in the plans and who demonstrated language in the products. Appeal was also present in more products than plans. Most students described a purpose in their plans while less than a third described considering the prior knowledge of their audience or the theoretical rationale for their decisions.

The instructor’s assignment instructions and rubric included some of the EEES framework elements even though the instructor did not have the framework and the researchers did not direct the instructor on assignment design prior to the semester. Nevertheless, we compared what elements appeared in the assignment instructions and rubric with the elements students demonstrated in their projects to provide insight into the effect that instruction can have on the students’ demonstration of skills (as further explained in the discussion). Elements that were explicitly mentioned in the assignment instructions were described in plans and demonstrated in products by most students (Table 2 ); fewer students described elements in their plans that were only present in the rubric, while many more students demonstrated these rubric-only elements in their products. Elements that were not explicitly asked for in either the instructions or rubric were present in the fewest student plans and products.

Themes for how students presented SciComm elements

Beyond if the elements were present in the students’ projects, we analyzed how the students presented these elements. We organized the results below into the four strategic categories to which the elements belong in the framework.

Who did students communicate with?

The students defined their audiences through categories of specificity, age, and interest (Table 3 ). More than half the students targeted both a specific audience in conjunction with a general audience in their plans and products. For example, Wells wrote,

My target audience would be people that work outdoors first and foremost, as this issue would affect them the most from a health perspective. Otherwise, I think the environmental aspect of the issue affects everyone and anyone, so I would want to spread that information to as many people as possible.

When specifying their audience, the students described age and interest. More students targeted adults over young adults or children. In the plans, about half of the students aimed for an audience with identified interest or non-interest in the scientific content that they intended to communicate. Of the 15 plans that addressed the interest of the audience, most targeted an audience with an interest in the subject. A few of the students explicitly sought out an audience who were not already interested in the scientific content (Table 3 ). For example, Bellamy wrote,

I hope to reach people that are not extremely in tune with the environment.

Two out of the 27 plans (Bellamy and Echo) described wanting to address an audience that included both interested and uninterested members. The interest of the audience was not observable in the final products as this work focused on the students and their work, not the students’ audiences.

Prior knowledge

The students approached the element of prior knowledge by collecting and sometimes using information about their audiences’ understanding to influence their projects. Eight students (30%) planned to collect information on the prior knowledge of their audience. For example, Raven wrote,

I plan to ask the children about their own thoughts on the subject, of what they already know about sharks and how they perceive them, why they think sharks are important and helpful to the ecosystem, and what they can do to help preserve the shark's habitat.

Raven planned to move forward with her presentation irrespective of the children’s input. Four students (15%) described planning to use the prior knowledge information they gathered by adapting their products accordingly. For example, Niylah wrote that she would (emphasis is ours):

create a survey with a mixture of multiple-choice and open-ended/extended-response questions to gauge the public’s knowledge on recycling (what is recyclable, where do these materials go after they are recycled, etc.) and what questions they have about recycling…Create easy-to-understand and visually appealing infographics on recycling based on survey results …in an attempt to address and clarify common misconceptions.

Why did the students communicate this science?

Purpose: communication objectives.

We examined how students described the purpose of their projects in their plans through the lens of Besley’s work that defines important science communication objectives (Besley et al., 2018 ) (Table 4 ). Several students intuitively developed their project’s purpose and described between zero and four objectives with two objectives being the most common (9 students, 33%). The objective to increase knowledge or awareness was the most common followed by the explicit goal to cause their audience to act, which is not a part of the Besley framework of objectives. For instance, Wells planned to create a public service announcement to show the effects of climate change on human health. His call to action was to help people slow the buildup of greenhouse gases from everyday changes, such as providing examples of cleaner forms of transportation and energy use.

The next most common objectives were to boost interest and excitement, as well as listen and demonstrate openness. For example, Echo demonstrated openness by starting a discussion on Facebook—within her circle of family and friends—to understand different points of view on climate change. She stated that she would “respond politely with facts, but in a way where [my peers] don’t feel attacked.” Few students included any one of the other four objectives.

For the students that included some element of theory (7 plans, 26%), their rationalization for why they made certain decisions did not align with science communication theory or evidence-based practices. For example, Clarke said she wanted to make the project entertaining so that the audience would be more likely to remember the information, and Anya chose college students as a target audience because she believed that people who go to college are more passionate and generally interested in changing the world. These explanations seemed to be based on their interpretations of how learning works and how education increases interest, respectively, but not necessarily based on the literature.

Another student, Madi, chose a target audience of high school students because “They are mature enough to instill the information being taught, but just as immature enough to refuse to accept it.” Her rationale stems from, as she explained, her upbringing in a household with parents who were teachers. Though not established in the literature on teaching nor SciComm, this student made a decision about her audience based on descriptions from her parents—her authority figures.

What did the students communicate?

We analyzed the scientific content of the students’ projects regarding what components they included and what topics they focused on (Table 5 ). Most to all students incorporated a human component to their projects and several included a biological (non-human) component. The human component was labeled if the plans and products presented anything related to human involvement. For instance, climate change would fall into this category only if a student explicitly talked about human roles in either causing climate change or how their actions could mitigate the effects of climate change. There had to be some language explicitly relating to people and not just assumed human involvement. For the biological component, the projects had to explicitly reference non-human biological species. For example, a student working on a climate change SciComm project would need to mention the effects on other species than humans. Components relating to earth sciences (e.g., weather and oil spills) were present but infrequent (four or fewer students). The students focused on topics that were covered at other times during the course at relatively equal proportions with an ecological topic being slightly more popular than sustainability or climate change.

Some of the students considered the social, political, and/or cultural context of the scientific information (4 out of 27 plans, 5 out of 21 products). Although there were too few of these students to decipher themes within context, examples included describing the culture of coastal fishermen in relation to overfishing issues (Harper), and that the ability to choose foods from sustainable farming practices may be impacted by socioeconomic status (Lincoln).

How did the students communicate science?

Dialogue pertains to any conversation between the student presenter and the audience. Conversation could be on any subject including on scientific content being communicated or other topics. Student plans and products were analyzed for the element of dialogue in two ways: the direction and level of dialogue. For the direction of dialogue, all students talked to their audience and most students also received input from their audience (Table 6 ).

The level of dialogue indicated how much dialogue was planned or occurred. Low dialogue was when only one direction of communication was planned or occurred (e.g., student communicating to the audience only). Fewer students executed low dialogue than described low dialogue in their plans (Table 6 ). Medium dialogue was when both directions of dialogue were planned or occurred, but one direction was much more prevalent than the other (e.g., a presentation with a brief question-and-answer (Q&A) session). Over half of the students described medium dialogue in their plans while only about a third executed dialogue at this level (Table 6 ). High dialogue was when both directions of dialogue were planned or occurred frequently and throughout the communication. The fewest number of students planned high dialogue, although the largest number of students executed high dialogue (Table 6 ).

Engagement pertains to how the audience engages with the science. Student plans and products were analyzed for the element of engagement in two ways: the type and level of engagement. Most of the students passively engaged their audience by having the audience listen and/or observe the presentation (Table 6 ). Engagement commonly took the form of asking the audience specific questions about the science or allowing for questions or comments from the audience. Only 1 out of 27 students planned to actively engage their audience with the science by having them play a board game on migration and go bird watching (Indra). Only 1 out of 21 students executed active engagement by having students identify rocks with a game (Lexa). A few of the students mentioned engaging their audience with the science but did not further describe how they planned to do so (coded as ambiguous) (Table 6 ).

The level of engagement indicated how much the student planned or facilitated the audience to engage with the science. Low engagement was when the student presented to the audience who only viewed or listened nearly the entire time. A third of students planned to engage their audience at a low level but a slightly lower percentage executed low-level engagement (Table 6 ). Medium engagement was when the student presented and the audience viewed and/or listened most of the time but there were some other types of engagement, commonly as questions between the audience and student. Most students planned and executed medium-level engagement (Table 6 ). High engagement was when the student facilitated active and/or frequent engagement between the audience and the science, such as the audience answering frequent specific questions and modeling or observing a scientific phenomenon (e.g., bird watching or the rock game). The fewest students planned high-level engagement; however, more of the students executed high engagement (Table 6 ).

We coded language for whether students used jargon and the formality of their language (Table 6 ). Only 1 out of the 27 students (Abby) described in her plans what language she would use by “avoiding jargon.” More students omitted jargon from their products than included jargon. More students used informal language when communicating science than formal language, or they used a mix of formal and informal rhetoric.

Mode and platform

The students approached the elements of mode and platform in terms of location, use of media types, and use of social media (Table 6 ). More of the students had projects that were remote from their audience than in-person. A few of the students planned projects that involved both remote and in-person portions. In-person projects were commonly set in a classroom. As for media types, most students used print media (e.g., the Twitter Q&A and conversations in Fig. 2 ) in their final products and several students used multiple types of media (Table 6 ). While many of the 27 students planned to do audio-based projects such as podcasts, only 2 out of 21 executed that plan. Regarding where to put their SciComm, most students included social media, which included sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (Table 6 ).

Appeal and style

The students appealed to their audiences’ senses primarily with visuals including PowerPoint slides, photos, artwork, and charts. Some of the students used stylistic elements to present scientific information. For example, Bellamy included humor and satire by dressing up in a penguin suit and advertising to “kill the penguins.” Gaia employed narration and described her adventures at the local farmer’s market.

To tailor a curriculum to be meaningful and authentic, educators and education researchers need to first define learning outcomes that align with professional, scientific practice, and then use those definitions to assess students’ baseline skills, including for SciComm. Then, the curriculum can be built upon this solid foundation. Here, we provided a rich description of the baseline SciComm skills of students in an undergraduate environmental science course. Overall, our results showed that these undergraduate students are on their way to being effective science communicators and have room to develop these skills further with proper curricular support. We next interpret that description to guide instructors on how to help students develop important SciComm skills.

Students demonstrated their skills consistently, between their plans and products, in many ways including identifying their audience and focusing on factual content. However, there were a few notable exceptions. Students planned primarily one-way dialogue (e.g., talking at a class) but executed frequent two-way dialogue (e.g., played a game with the audience) throughout their SciComm; this switch to more interaction from planning to execution was similar to how students engaged their audiences with the science. But not all skills listed in the framework were observed in the students’ work, which provides instructors the room to give students a wide variety of opportunities and circumstances to demonstrate, practice, and develop their SciComm skills.

Furthermore, the results showed that it is important to recognize the value of the instruction given by the instructor, which affected the types of skills students demonstrated. The students demonstrated most of the elements in their plans and products that aligned with what was asked of them in the instructions. This suggests that students would benefit from explicit SciComm instruction and training on effective SciComm to develop their SciComm skills in the context of their science coursework.

Pedagogical and curricular recommendations for integrating SciComm into science courses

Below, we take a fine-grain view of the SciComm skills these students demonstrated and make recommendations on how instructors and curriculum can build off this baseline to effectively help science students develop their SciComm skills.

With whom to communicate science

Help students identify a narrow audience. Our findings showed that the students commonly described a specific population but then also described trying to reach a broader audience. Students may need help recognizing that fostering quality communication with a small and specific audience is more effective than just exposing their SciComm to large quantities of people (Mercer-Mapstone & Kuchel, 2017 ).

Help students understand their audience. Here, about a third of the students considered the prior knowledge of their audience and fewer used it to influence their products. Similarly, about half of the students did not describe whether they thought their audience was explicitly interested or not interested in the subject. A presenter must acknowledge and understand what their audience already knows (i.e., prior knowledge) and what the audience is interested in to increase knowledge (Ausubel, 2012 ; Novak, 2010 ; Vosniadou, 2013 ), which was the most commonly stated purpose objective. This is true whether the setting is a classroom between an instructor and students or on a public stage such as with these environmental science students and their target audiences.

Why communicate science

Introduce students to the theories that make for effective SciComm. Despite not being asked to, some of the students described their rationale behind why their project would effectively communicate science with the public (theory element). However, these explanations seemed to be based on intuition, and were lacking operational description, which are often ineffective and can be harmful to the public’s perceptions of science (Scheufele, 2013 ). Therefore, instructors may consider introducing SciComm via its theoretical underpinnings to help students better understand the need for developing such skills.

Encourage students to aim for diverse communication objectives. Here, many students intuitively aimed to increase knowledge and awareness. Similarly, scientists focus more on this traditional knowledge-based objective than other equally important objectives (Besley et al., 2018 ). Nevertheless, scientists, and thus science students, need to aim beyond just increasing knowledge and awareness as many other objectives are key to effective SciComm (Besley et al., 2018 ). Specifically, appropriate for science students are the objectives of boosting interest and excitement, conveying warmth and respect, conveying shared values, and listening and demonstrating openness (Fig. 1 ). Further, having an audience take action is an assumed, ultimate goal of communication (Besley et al., 2018 ); here, about half of the students’ plans made this goal explicit. More work is needed to know if students are thinking about an ultimate goal for their SciComm. Together, our work suggests that the curriculum should provide support to help students identify their broader goals and specific objectives for SciComm.

How to communicate science

Give students practice with multiple media types. Here, many students planned to use audio and video, but then executed their SciComm with print media. A recent report concluded that Gen Z (people born between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s) prefer video over print for learning, whereas Millennials (people born in the early 1980s to mid-1990s) prefer print (Pearson Education Inc., 2018 ). The students studied here were composed of approximately 75% Gen Z and 20% Millennials. One explanation for our results could be that the students had ambitions to increase the knowledge and awareness of their audience using a medium which they themselves prefer and commonly consume (video) but potentially experienced logistical constraints that directed them to a simpler media (print) that could still reach a large audience (e.g., Lincoln’s switch from podcast to print). Scientists have increasingly connected with the public, using print, audio, and video remotely due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (ASBMB, 2020 ). Therefore, students need practice with a variety of media types, especially on a variety of platforms as communication with the public evolves.

Example curricula

There are a few published examples of integrated SciComm and science curriculum that may help science students develop their SciComm skills. These are organized either as whole courses or modules within science courses. Examples of whole courses include an undergraduate neuroimmunology and writing course (Brownell et al., 2013a ) and a biotech and SciComm course (Edmondston et al., 2010a , 2010b ). Examples of the modular approach have been documented in the contexts of junior high school (Spektor-Levy et al., 2008 , 2009 ), undergraduate physics (Arion, 2016 ; Arion et al., 2018 ), mid-level undergraduate biology, physics, and chemistry (Mercer-Mapstone & Kuchel, 2016 ), and upper-level undergraduate biology (Yeoman et al., 2011 ). Additionally, we applied the EEES framework to develop and assess a module for introductory undergraduate biology students (Wack et al., 2021 ). These curricula may be excellent sources for instructors looking for guidance on how to help their students develop SciComm skills.

Assessment and feedback

Vital components of learning are assessment and feedback. Assessment of students should be based on the learning goals and objectives that instructors make explicit at the beginning of any lesson (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005 ) and thus can vary considerably. The options to assess SciComm lessons include what others in the literature have done, including using a closed-response quiz where students apply their knowledge of SciComm (Wack et al., 2021 ); asking for students to report on their gained skills (Yeoman et al., 2011 ); measuring perceptions, value, and confidence in communicating science (Brownell et al., 2013a ; Edmondston et al., 2010a ); and characterizing the skills students demonstrate as we have done here. Additional assessment could include input from the audience to gauge the effectiveness of the communication. These assessment options can be used to provide feedback to students so that they may reflect on their performance and how they may perform better in the future—an important step in developing lasting skills.

Limitations and future directions

We recognize the limitations of this research and suggest how future studies could augment this work. For instance, we intentionally omitted giving the students the framework in the instructions and rubric so that we could observe a baseline of SciComm skills. Future work should investigate how providing different scaffolds, or support such as the framework, affects students’ SciComm skills.

By using content analysis of student work, we were able to provide rich descriptions of students’ SciComm skills. Future work should use student interviews and reflective journaling to triangulate evidence on SciComm skills. When only a few students described a certain element, it reduced our ability to establish themes for how students commonly address an element and limits the generalizability of the results. Nevertheless, our findings on these elements provide some anecdotal examples of what one might expect from their students or study population.

Many of the elements of SciComm are intertwined, as are best practices for SciComm. For example, the audience one targets (e.g., young children) will impact the platform they choose (e.g., a classroom, not Twitter). These interconnections led to occasional overlap in our coding (e.g., engagement/dialogue, types/levels) and results could be influencing other results. Nonetheless, descriptions of each element provided a comprehensive survey of the students’ baseline skills and thus were important to characterize individually.

We recognize that this is just one class in one context; much more work needs to be done in a variety of contexts, and separate results based on student demographics, to gain additional perspectives on undergraduate life science students’ baseline SciComm skills. For example, repeating this study with larger groups of students in more disciplines would improve statistical strength; additionally, larger samples would allow for testing the effects of age or experience on outcomes so that these results may be extrapolated to other institutions and other disciplinary contexts across STEM fields.

SciComm is an important scientific practice for which undergraduate science students should develop skills. To effectively help students develop these skills, it is important to understand what baseline skills students have. Here, we used the EEES framework to explore the SciComm skills students in an environmental science course demonstrated with little training. Despite not being given the framework, students included several of the 13 elements, especially those which were explicitly asked for in the assignment instructions. Students exhibited SciComm skills similar to scientists who are novice in SciComm but showed promising development by following many of the instructions and refining their work from planning to execution. Together with the recommendations we make for how instructors can use these findings, a curriculum that is grounded in effective science communication can help undergraduate science students develop meaningful SciComm skills.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Student products, specifically, are available in the figshare repository, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14544072 (Bergan-Roller & Yuan, 2021 ).

Abbreviations

Elements for Effective Science Communication framework

Written documents students submitted to plan their SciComm

Evidence students submitted of their executed SciComm

The combination of students’ plans and products

Question and answer

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2

Communicating science with non-experts

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Acknowledgments

We thank the faculty member who instructed the course for providing access to her class and supporting the project. We thank Dr. Devarati Bhattacharya for her advice on content analysis. We thank Dr. Jaime Sabel, Dr. Jenny Dauer, the NIU DBER group, and the anonymous reviewers for their input on earlier versions of this manuscript.

This project was funded by the Department of Biological Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Division of Research and Innovative Partnerships at Northern Illinois University, as well as the Summer Internship Grant Program at Northwestern University. Funds were used to support the authors in their work on this project. The funders had no input on any aspect of this project.

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Shivni, R., Cline, C., Newport, M. et al. Establishing a baseline of science communication skills in an undergraduate environmental science course. IJ STEM Ed 8 , 47 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-021-00304-0

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How do STEM graduate students perceive science communication? Understanding science communication perceptions of future scientists

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Affiliations STEM Transformation Institute, Florida International University, Miami, FL, United States of America, Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, FL, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

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• Tessy S. Ritchie, 
• Dione L. Rossiter, 
• Hannah Bruce Opris, 
• Idarabasi Evangel Akpan, 
• Simone Oliphant, 
• Melissa McCartney

• Published: October 3, 2022
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274840
• Reader Comments

Increasingly, communicating science to the public is recognized as the responsibility of professional scientists; however, these skills are not always included in graduate training. In addition, most research on science communication training during graduate school, which is limited, has been program evaluation or literature reviews and does not report on or seek to understand graduate student perspectives. This research study provides a comprehensive analysis of graduate-level science communication training from the perspective of STEM graduate students. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study aimed to investigate where graduate students are receiving science communication training (if at all), what this training looks like from the student’s point of view, and, for graduate students that are engaging in science communication, what do these experiences look like. This study also explores how graduate students define science communication. Taken together, these results will give graduate students a voice in the development of science communication trainings and will remove barriers and increase equity in science communication training.

Citation: Ritchie TS, Rossiter DL, Opris HB, Akpan IE, Oliphant S, McCartney M (2022) How do STEM graduate students perceive science communication? Understanding science communication perceptions of future scientists. PLoS ONE 17(10): e0274840. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274840

Editor: Sotaro Shibayama, Lund University: Lunds Universitet, SWEDEN

Received: May 9, 2022; Accepted: September 6, 2022; Published: October 3, 2022

This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.

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Funding: This work was supported by the State of Florida through the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 State University System of Florida Legislative Budget Request and a Florida International University start-up package. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. TSR is an employee of the United States government. This manuscript and its findings are in no way a reflection of the United States Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Department of the Navy or United States Government. All information and conclusions presented herein belong to the authors alone who contributed to this manuscript. This affiliation does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials

Introduction

Science communication has taken on many definitions. Communicating science can be divided into scientific communication, which refers to scientists sharing their work inside their community, and science communication, which refers to sharing science with non-experts [ 1 ]. Both aspects of communicating science are important, and both are integral parts of a being a scientist. Whether it be giving an oral presentation at a scientific conference or a public talk at a science center, writing a scientific journal article or an op-ed, or simply engaging in a conversation with a colleague or a friend, scientists are communicating.

When scientists are able to effectively communicate with each other, society gets better science. When scientists are able to effectively communicate with the public, the general public gets a wealth of benefits, including an increase in public support for science and science funding, more informed science policy at all levels, clearer guidelines for environmental and public health initiatives, and, perhaps most importantly, citizens that practice evidence-based decision making; and thus, better informed voters. Inclusive and strategic science communication initiatives can even help eliminate societal structures that perpetuate inequality (i.e. pay gaps and knowledge gaps) and provide role models to repair “leaky pipelines” for women and members of traditionally underrepresented communities.

The ability to communicate effectively is an important skill for scientists regardless of career path, whether that be in academia, industry, or careers away from the bench (including, but not limited to, nonprofit, government, business, law, informal and formal K-12 education, etc.). In an academic setting, science communication is expected between university scientists and undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral scholars in classrooms and labs. For both academic and industry scientists, communication between colleagues is required to foster innovation and collaboration, to share scientific results, and to encourage scientific discourse and critique. Examples of science communication include scientific publications, funding proposals, and conference oral or poster presentations. Both groups have an obligation to, and are sometimes required to, communicate to stakeholders like community members, board members or, in the case of any publicly funded research, the taxpayer. Scientists who choose careers away from the bench are often faced with the additional challenge of communicating with nonscientific audiences after years of technical training and learning how to communicate and engage in an academic setting, with little or no training in communicating science to non-academic audiences.

A recent study of descriptive analysis of 142,000 job advertisements found that oral communication and written communication are the top two in demand 21st-century skills, expressed as a proportion of total job advertisements examined [ 2 ]. The study further showed that these skills are important for workplace success but are scarce in the applicant pool. More specific to STEM, a recent study of U.S.-trained doctoral chemists from academia, industry, and government were interviewed about the activities they conduct on a day-to-day basis and the knowledge and skills required to successfully complete these activities. Communication skills were the second most often mentioned skill by chemists in the interviews [ 3 ]. A similar study, focusing on bachelors-leveled chemists, uncovered a disconnect between the skills cross-sector employers desire and those they expect from their new hires’ formal instruction. To address this disconnect, the study recommends including interprofessional skills, which include communication skills, into the scientific curriculum [ 4 ]. Similar results are found in the biomedical sciences, with communication skills being considered requisite for success in today’s economy [ 5 ]. Research also suggests that engaging in and receiving active mentoring in science communication play a significant role in a young scientist’s intent to pursue an academic career [ 6 ].

Graduate school curriculums are designed to provide comprehensive training, preparing scientists to be experts in their field. Once in the workforce, there are rarely any required continuing professional development requirements or opportunities. Therefore, graduate school is likely the final stage of traditional lecture and course-based learning. As noted previously, scientists are required to communicate their science to other scientists, to their students, to funding agencies, and to the public, yet no formal training in science communication is required. We argue that science communication training should be an integral component of graduate-level coursework.

Most research on science communication training during graduate school, which is limited, has been program evaluation or literature reviews [ 7 – 11 ]. Outside of workshop and/or conference reports, there is little evidence in the peer-reviewed literature on graduate students’ perspective of science communication training, and there are few peer-reviewed, empirical studies on how graduate students define, perceive, or engage in science communication. In December of 2013, COMPASS convened the #GradSciComm workshop, bringing together a select group of 30 science communication trainers, scholars, science society staff, funders, administrators, and graduate student leaders [ 11 ]. As part of this workshop, participants worked together to define the core concepts and essential knowledge and skills of science communication [ 11 ]. While this workshop made great gains in mapping the pathways to integrate science communication training into STEM graduate education, it was ultimately a self-selecting group that included established scientists, faculty, and professional science communicators, and did not provide direct evidence of how STEM graduate students themselves define and prioritize science communication. While we fully recognize that many STEM graduate students have indeed received excellent training either from within their institution or from external opportunities, we also recognize the absence of the graduate student perspective from the literature [ 9 , 10 , 12 – 20 ].

Our research is not meant to compare or evaluate existing training programs, rather it comes from an intent to give STEM graduate students more of a voice in the conversation. In this study, we aim to expand the existing knowledge base on how current STEM graduate students define science communication, practice and engage in science communication, and how they envision their future as science communication practitioners. Through quantitative and qualitative data analysis, feedback is presented from STEM graduate students themselves as a way to initiate new lines of inquiry around future development of science communication opportunities for STEM graduate students. As a mixed-methods phenomenological study, this research is not specifically seeking to test existing theories about how or why graduate students decide to engage in science communication [ 21 , 22 ] nor is it meant to compare or evaluate existing training programs. Instead, we quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed the unique ways students experience the same phenomenon as a way to compile a comprehensive description of STEM graduate students’ “lived experiences.” To the best of our knowledge, this study represents one of the only data sets from graduate students themselves, in which graduate students provide their perceptions of science communication training experiences, how they define science communication, how they have engaged in the process of science communication, and how they envision the future of science communication training.

Development of the Graduate Student Science Communication (GSSC) questionnaire

We identified key definitions and research questions provided in policy documents, research studies, editorials, and commentaries on the state of science communication and reviewed the literature describing specific communication skills. Using the information found, questions falling into four major categories were developed: 1) what previous science communication training (if any) have the participants experienced; 2) how do STEM graduate students define science communication; 3) what ways have the participants engaged in the process of science communication; and 4) how do the participants envision the future of science communication training.

Modification of the GSSC questionnaire using a STEM graduate student focus group

A total of twelve graduate students from varied STEM disciplines were recruited to participate in a focus group at Florida International University (FIU), a R1 University in the southeastern United States. Each student was given an online link to the GSSC questionnaire and asked to answer to the best of their ability. Directly after the GSSC questionnaires were completed, the students participated in a focus group conducted by two researchers (S.O. and M.M.). Students were asked for feedback in regards to the wording of each question, the purpose of each question, the length of the entire questionnaire, and their overall experience while completing the questionnaire. The questionnaire was edited based on the feedback of the focus group, and questions that were identified as poorly written, confusing, too time consuming, or repetitive were removed. No individual data from focus group participants were included in the current analysis. The questionnaire was submitted to the Institutional Review Board at FIU and U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) and was granted IRB approval (FIU IRB # 106915) and (USNA.2018.0059-IR-EP7-A). Participant consent was collected via the consent form in the questionnaire. Participants marked the "I agree to participate in this research study" which allowed them to proceed to the rest of the questionnaire. Anyone who did not agree was not allowed to proceed with the questionnaire.

Distribution of the GSSC questionnaire

The GSSC questionnaire was administered through Qualtrics (online survey software; Provo, Utah and Seattle, Washington). Links to the GSSC questionnaire and a description of the research study were sent to relevant listservs and distributed using social media. Two-hundred and nine graduate admissions offices and individual departments were contacted via email. The email provided information on the questionnaire and encouraged their students participate. The GSSC questionnaire was open from September 2018 through February 2019. A total of 273 responses were recorded, with 161 determined to be complete enough to include in the analysis (59% of total responses were analyzed). Questionnaires were completely anonymous and no incentives were given for completion of the questionnaire.

Qualitative data analysis and inductive coding

Short answer response data were analyzed using inductive coding, a subset of thematic analysis [ 23 ], and Nvivo software (NVivo version 11.4, QSR International). Per definition, inductive coding is free from theoretical frameworks. Instead, inductive coding is completely driven by the participants’ responses [ 23 ]. Four researchers (T.S.R., H.B.O., I.A., and M.M.) read all of the short answer responses and independently created lists of the different perceptions, attitudes, and opinions that arose from participant responses. Initial findings were discussed among the four researchers and a preliminary code book was developed consisting of short, descriptive phrases that could be used to describe particular perceptions, attitudes, or opinions expressed by participants. Each short answer question was independently coded by two researchers. The pair of researchers then convened to discuss, further define, and reduce codes that were unclear. Analysis of coding considered only the presence or absence of specific themes within each short answer, not the frequency with which a single participant expressed a particular theme. Responses corresponding to more than one theme were coded to each code they corresponded with. Kappa values measuring inter-rater reliability (the extent to which researchers assign the same code to the same data) were over 0.8, which represent higher standards than recommended (0.65) [ 24 ]. The results of inductive coding analysis are presented in the results section using a series of Tables containing 3 columns (Tables 1 – 6 , 8 , 9 ). The first column contains the results from thematic analysis: the emerging code and the percentage of participants whose responses were determined to fall within each emerging code. The second column provides a brief description of the emerging code. The third column contains a sample of participant responses, with the coded text bolded and underlined for ease of reading.

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As described in the methods section, responses corresponding to more than one code were coded to each code they correspond with within the same question.

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Text from each response that is directly relevant to each code is in bold and underlined text.

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Descriptive statistics

A full list of represented institutions can found in S1 File (S1 Table). Fig 1A shows participants’ time completed in graduate school at the time of the survey, indicating that there is roughly equal representation from participants at all levels of their graduate careers. Fig 1B shows participants were binned based on their field of study following an existing organizational chart ( https://www.mindmeister.com/1023614692/branches-of-science?fullscreen=1 ).

A. Participants time completed in graduate school, in years, shown as percent responding. B. Participants subject-specific disciplines binned based on their branch of science following an existing organizational chart ( https://www.mindmeister.com/1023614692/branches-of-science?fullscreen=1 ).

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Performance/Competence and interest in science communication

A critical agency framework was adapted showing that feelings of performance and competence and prior interest in a STEM subject is a positive predictor of STEM identities [ 25 , 26 ]. Specifically, performance and competency, measured as one construct, refer to an individual’s confidence levels in relation to their disciplinary community, which, for this study, would be the science communication community. In addition, interest in a particular subject has been shown to play a key role in a person’s choice of career, and for this study interest in communicating general science concepts with the public was measured.

Baseline measurements of performance/competence and interest in communicating general science concepts to the public were collected from participants. As this was a one-time survey, changes in these constructs over time will not be measured, but instead a general measurement of where participants fall on the performance/competence and interest spectrum as it relates to communicating general science concepts to the public. From these measurements, more will be learned about whether the participants exhibit performance/competence and identity as a science communicator and determine if performance/competence and interest measurements relate to any other identifying characteristics such as gender or teaching experience.

Five statements measuring performance/competence in communicating general science concepts to the public and 3 statements measuring interest in communicating general science concepts to the public were adapted from Godwin et al., [ 25 ]. "General science concepts" were defined as larger issues such as climate change, stem cell research, nuclear waste, drug development, gravitational waves, and other science concepts often included in scientific news reports. The statements are as follows:

Performance and competence

• I am confident I can communicate general science concepts to the public;
• I can accurately summarize and communicate general science concepts to the public;
• I understand how to communicate general science concepts to the public;
• I can overcome setbacks in communicating general science concepts to the public;
• Others ask me for help in communicating general science concepts to the public.
• I am interested in learning more about how to communicate general science concepts to the public;
• Thinking about how to communicate general science concepts to the public excites my curiosity;
• I enjoy learning about how to communicate general science concepts to the public.

Participants rated their agreement with each statement on a 5-point Likert scale from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Scores for both performance/competence and interest were calculated as the average of responses to the 5 and 3 questions, respectively, with a higher score indicating higher levels of performance/competence and interest in communicate general science concepts to the public, which are suggestive of identity as a science communicator.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

CFA was used to determine whether the performance/competence and identity questions adapted from Godwin (2016) were behaving the same way with this study’s student population as they were in the original study. Considering the small number of factors (two, performance/competence and interest) and the number of questions per factor (five for performance/competence and three for interest), the sample size of n = 161 is considered large enough to use for CFA [ 26 , 27 ]. CFA was run using the R package lavaan [ 28 ]. It was assumed that the re-written prompts would represent two factors. A Comparative Fit Index (CFI) of 0.980, a robust RMSEA of 0.059, and a Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) of 0.055 were found, all of which support that the adapted questions represent two factors as does the original scale [ 29 ].

Chi-square test

A chi-square calculator was used to determine the association between two sets of categorical data, specifically training and engagement in science communication, using a 2x2 contingency table ( www.socscistatistics.com ). Any results that proved to be statistically significant were confirmed using R by running a Pearson’s Chi-squared test with Yates’ continuity correction. Cohen’s guidelines indicate that a 0.1 is considered a small effect, 0.3 is a medium effect and 0.5 is a large effect [ 30 , 31 ].

Mann Whitney

A Mann Whitney U calculator was used to determine if there was any difference in the performance/competence and interest for different sub-groups within samples, specifically looking at gender and TA/teaching experience ( www.statskingdom.com ). A nonparametric test was chosen for this analysis because the performance/competence and interest means were calculated using ordinal data (Likert scale) questions prior to the factor analysis. This calculator provided all of the information in Fig 6 . U and p values were confirmed using the Wilcoxon rank sum test with continuity correction in R. Cohen’s guidelines indicate that a 0.1 is considered a small effect, 0.3 is a medium effect and 0.5 is a large effect [ 31 , 32 ].

Word clouds

Word clouds were used as a visual representation of participant responses to “How do you define science communication?” emphasizing the frequency of words used amongst participants. Word clouds were created based on the word frequency tables exported from the correlated Nvivo files. Word frequency tables included all words greater than three letters used in all of the coded questionnaire responses and the amount of times each word was used. Because the words science, scientific, communication, and communicating were used frequently among all participants and were not insightful for the purposes of this research, they were removed from the word tables. The word frequency tables were then inputted into WordArt.com to generate the word clouds (where the size of the words represent their frequency in the responses) included here ( Fig 2 ). Raw data word clouds can be found in S1 File (S1 Fig).

The size of each of the words within the categorical word clouds correlates to its frequency in the coded responses. The words “science,” “scientific,” “communication,” and “communicating” have been removed in order to showcase more representative words.

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Participant demographics

A total of 161 responses from STEM graduate students in 29 U.S. states, 2 U.S. territories, and 11 countries were analyzed. A full list of represented Institutions is found in S1 File (S1 Table). The majority of participants reported that they are working towards a PhD degree (79%), 15% are working towards a master’s degree, 3% recently graduated with a PhD and 3% reported “other.” Participants are at varying stages of their graduate careers, with over 70% of participants enrolled in graduate school for at least three years or more ( Fig 1A ). A wide variety of disciplines are represented in the graduate student sample with the largest population pursuing degrees in life sciences (48%). Fig 1B includes discipline data from all responses. The gender ratio is 8 to 3, female to male, and the ethnic demographics are 71% white, 16% Asian, 11% Hispanic/Latino, 4% Multiracial, 1% Black or African American, 1% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 1% declined to respond.

How do STEM graduate students define science communication?

Participants were asked: “In a few short sentences, how do you define science communication?” The qualitative responses received were complex and multifaceted. Inductive coding [ 23 ] was used to divide this data set into four main categories:

• Skills STEM graduate students report that are needed to communicate science;
• Intended audiences STEM graduate students expect to engage with;
• Mediums through which STEM graduate students envision science communication; and
• The purpose of science communication as perceived by STEM graduate students.

Once these main categories were established, inductive coding was used again to further define the data set found within each category. Results from inductive coding are shown in Tables 1 – 4 and are associated with category 1–4, respectively. To further understand the results of the inductive coding, four distinct word clouds corresponding each of the four categories were generated, highlighting the complexity of how STEM graduate students define science communication. ( Fig 2 ).

Tables 1 – 4 : Participant responses to the question “In a few short sentences, how do you define science communication?” To start, data was separated into four major categories. Table 1 : SKILLS, skills STEM graduate students report being needed to communicate science. Table 2 : AUDIENCE, intended audiences STEM graduate students expect to engage with. Table 3 : MEDIUM, mediums through which STEM graduate students envision science communication. Table 4 : PURPOSE, the purpose of science communication as perceived by STEM graduate students. Data within each of the four categories was further analyzed using inductive coding [ 23 ]. Tables 1 – 4 show the code (left column), a description of each code (middle column), and direct quotes from participants as examples (right column). Text from each direct quote that is relevant to each code is in bold and underlined text.

Skills STEM graduate students report being needed to communicate science

A total of 73% of the participants who defined science communication using various skills included responses that fell under the code of “knowing your audience” ( Table 1 ). It is unclear in the qualitative data whether participants listed this skill so often because it is a skill they have already acquired or if it is a skill that is somewhat “universal” in that it should always be considered when communicating. Participant responses also include “using clear language” (22% of participants), “knowing the science” (6% of participants), and “establishing relationships” (4% of participants). Only 2% of participants did not mention a skill in their response.

Intended audiences STEM graduate students expect to engage with

The data indicates that STEM graduate students see two intended audiences for science communication: the general public (non-experts), mentioned in 50% of the responses, and other scientists (experts), mentioned in 2% of the responses. Thirty-four percent of participants defined science communication as involving both groups ( Table 2 ). Eighteen percent of respondents did not mention an audience or described an audience in extremely general terms.

Mediums through which STEM graduate students envision science communication

A majority of the respondents (76%) did not mention a medium within their definition of science communication, but for those who did, oral communication (15%) and written communication (13%) were mentioned most often. Social media was a distant third, with only 6% of respondents mentioning this in their definition.

The purpose of science communication as perceived by STEM graduate students

A majority of respondents (78%) included the purpose of “sharing science with a general audience” as a way to increase appreciation of science, increase interest in science, and inspire confidence in science ( Table 4 ). A much smaller amount of respondents (20%) described “sharing science with other scientists,” somewhat mirroring the data seen in Table 2 (50% consider their audience to be the general public, 2% consider their audience to be other scientists). Respondents mentioned other purposes of science communication include “informing policy” (16%); “educating others about science” (9%), which differs from “sharing science with a general audience” in that it deals with facts and misconceptions; and “encouraging the public to engage in science” (4%). Six percent of respondents did not mention a purpose.

Science communication training at represented institutions

Participants were asked “Did you have formal science communication training, for a public audience, at your graduate institution?” Data is shown in Fig 3 as percent responding, with 72% responding no and 28% responding yes. It is possible that these institutions offer science communication training yet participants were unaware of available opportunities or were not able to engage in training.

Participant responses to the question “Did you have formal science communication training, for a public audience, at your graduate institution?” Data is shown as percent responding, with 72% responding no and 28% responding yes.

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Learning more about what science communication skills (if any) were being taught at graduate institutions was also of interest. For eleven of the core skills described by Mercer-Mapstone & Kuchel [ 33 ], participants were asked whether they learned this skill through their graduate institution, through a training outside of their graduate institution, or whether they received no training for this skill ( Fig 4 ).

Participant responses when asked where, if at all, they received training in 11 core skills in science communication, listed A-K [ 33 ]. Data are shown as percent responding.

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The majority of participants are reporting training with the exception of skills F, G, and H (skills F: use a suitable mode and platform to communicate with the target audience, G: consider the social, political, and cultural context of the scientific information, and H: understand the underlying theories leading to the development of science communication and why it is important are the only 3 skills where “no training” is above 50%).

The spread between the amounts of participants who received training in individual skills is large; e.g. 72% of the respondents receiving training in skill D, consider the levels of prior knowledge in my target audience, and only 37% of respondents received training in skill H, understand the underlying theories leading to the development of science communication and why it is important, suggesting that certain skills are focused on more than others.

With the exception of skill E, separate essential from non-essential factual content in a context that is relevant to the target audience, more science communication training takes place in outside graduate institutions, i.e. informal training, than within graduate institutions, i.e. formal training. As this was a multiple-choice question, we do not have additional information detailing what respondents meant when choosing “informal: outside graduate institution” training.

What does science communication look like for today’s STEM graduate students?

In order to understand what types of activities graduate students considered to be science communication, STEM graduate students were asked, “Which of the following do you consider to fall within the category of science communication?” Participants were able to choose from a list of activities, designed by the research team, shown in Fig 5 , and were able to select as many as necessary. The top two selections being “Doing a science demo for an outreach program” (93%) and “Discussing science-related articles with a friend (88%).” These two selections, along with “Presenting at a scientific research conference” (79%) highlight oral communication among participants.

Data is shown as percent responding.

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Science communication via online platforms and social media was prevalent in this data set (76%), but it was not the top choice, consistent with the data shown in Table 3 . Participants seem more familiar with online platforms and social media; yet still tend to recognize more traditional forms of science communication.

“Lobbying for science to political leaders” was selected by 81% of participants, in contrast to the 16% who mention informing policy as a purpose of science communication in Table 4 . This difference is likely due to the fact that respondents did not necessarily think about policy when defining science communication, but when asked about policy specifically in a multiple-choice question, they opted to include it.

A connection was seen to science education in this data set, specifically with the large number of participants choosing “Working with K-12 students” (80%) and “TA-ing a lab” (64%). There is also a connection to written communication, with “Creating and maintaining a blog” (83%), “Writing an op-ed piece” (73%), and “Writing your dissertation” (53%) all centered on strong writing skills.

Communicating ‘general science’ -vs- communicating thesis research

We were also interested in learning more about what kind of science participants were communicating, specifically were they communicating "general science concepts" (defined as larger issues such as climate change, stem cell research, nuclear waste, drug development, gravitational waves, and other science concepts often included in scientific news reports; this definition was included in the question prompt) or were they communicating the details of their own thesis work. Roughly half of the sample (55%) reported engaging in general science concepts, just slightly higher than the 49% who reported communicating their thesis research, showing that participants were just as likely to communicate their own science as they were general science concepts ( Table 7 ).

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A series of qualitative questions were asked to further understand more about the experiences in science communication participants had and/or what was holding them back from engaging in science communication. Participants who responded”yes” to the question “do you engage in general science concepts?” were asked to “describe an example of how you have engaged in science communication related to a general science concept during your time in graduate school.” Inductive coding showed the data falling into two categories: 1) the types of audience respondents communicated with and 2) the types of medium respondents communicated using.

Audiences participants engaged with included the general public (33%), elementary school students (19%), middle school students (17%), high school students (12%), and friends and family (7%). Other scientists were mentioned in only 6% of responses. Speaking to elected officials totaled 6% of responses.

Mediums used for communicating general science concepts fell into three general themes of community outreach (54%), collaborations with schools (25%), and social media platforms (15%).

Participants who reported not engaging in general science concepts were asked, “What has stopped you from engaging in science communication related to a general science concept?” Inductive coding showed the data falling into six categories ( Table 5 ). Half of respondents (51%) described being unaware of opportunities in their answer. Over one quarter of respondents (27%) felt they were overstepping their expertise, i.e. feeling unqualified to speak on research outside of their area of expertise. “Nerves,” (14%), being “too busy” with non-lab centered commitments (12%), unable to “take time away from the lab” (7%), and a feeling that science communication “is unnecessary” (4%) were additional reasons provided for why respondents had not engaged in science communication related to general science concepts.

Regarding participant’s thesis research, the same two questions were asked, starting with “Please describe an example of how you have engaged in science communication related to your thesis research during your time in graduate school.” Inductive coding showed similar results to what was seen with general science concepts, with a few exceptions. With regards to the audience the participants were interacting with, a decrease of respondents mentioning K-12 students as an audience (17%) for communicating thesis research was seen (48% of responses for general science concepts). This may be intuitive, as general science concepts are often more accessible and more applicable to real life.

A large shift was also seen in responses indicating that they discuss their science with friends and family (19%) compared to 7% of participants communicating general science. This may seem intuitive, as a commitment as intense as graduate school is highly likely to come up in conversation among friends and family. However, what was surprising was at the range of people participants were including: everyone from the dentist to the hairstylist to Tinder dates. A range of responses like this was not seen when asked about communicating general science concepts. Because of their unique nature, a variety of responses are listed in S1 File (S2 Table).

When participants were asked “what has stopped you from communicating your own thesis research to a non-scientific general audience?” Inductive coding showed data falling into six categories ( Table 6 ). The number of responses relating to being “unaware of opportunities” was 35%, down considerably from the number of participants who described being unaware of opportunities for communicating general science (51%). Thirty percent of respondents described “overstepping expertise as a reason for not communicating thesis research, almost identical to the 27% seen with general science concepts. Thirteen percent of respondents indicated that communicating thesis research is unnecessary, higher than the number of participants who describe communicating general science as unnecessary (13% compared to 4%). Four percent of respondents described being afraid of the expectations of the public, being afraid to address controversial topics, and lack of confidence, which was coded together as “nerves.” Compared to general science concepts, the percentage of participants describing “nerves” as a barrier to science communication is lower (4% compared to 14%). The amount of participants citing lack of time to engage in science communication decreased (12% for general science concepts, 4% for thesis research). There were no responses describing “takes time away from the lab,” likely due to thesis research being fully connected to lab work. A new barrier, which emerged from this data set, was “Thesis research is not transferrable to a general audience” at 11%. Table 7 details similarities and differences in how respondents are communicating both general science concepts and their thesis research.

Skills graduate students report being needed for communicating their thesis research

For participants answering yes to “Have you ever engaged in science communication of your own thesis research to the public?” we asked what they considered to be the most important skills they needed in order to do this ( Table 8 ). “Knowing basic science communication techniques” was included in 65% of responses. “Knowing your audience” (48%), “knowing the science” (24%) and “engaging in two-way communication” (14%) were also included in participant responses.

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Finally, all participants were asked what additional training they think they would need in order to communicate their thesis research to the public ( Table 9 ). Results were complex, with nine different codes emerging. One code, more opportunities, relates to codes seen previously in Tables 5 and 6 (unaware of opportunities). Certain concepts have also been seen before, such as jargon ( Table 1 ). However, new and specific ideas for training opportunities that have not been present in previous data tables presented themselves. For example, turning research into a narrative and learning how to bring more storytelling to their thesis research (7%) and training in general public speaking (6%).

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Interest and performance/competence as it relates to science communication

Critical agency frameworks previously developed in STEM education were adapted as a way to measure participant performance/competence and interest relating to science communication (see methods ). Because the questionnaire was only given once, these data serve solely as a starting point for new lines of inquiry into STEM graduate students perceptions of science communication. The performance/competence level was found to be 4.6 (out of 6) and the interest level was found to be 5.2 (out of 6), which indicate a high starting level for both (likely the result of a self-selected population who completed a science communication questionnaire for no incentive) ( Fig 6 ). These data suggest that STEM graduate students believe they are able to engage in science communication and that they have a strong interest in science communication, although the self-selection bias of participants likely affects this result.

Further statistical tests were done to examine relationships between interest and competence/performance in science communication, gender, and previous teaching experience. Bars with asterisks and hashtags indicate a statistically significant difference between two groups, gender and teaching experience, respectively. A corresponding data chart is found in S1 File (S3 Table).

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These measures were also analyzed in the context of other data points. Specifically, were there any differences in performance/competence and/or interest based on participant’s gender and/or prior teaching experience? While there was no statistically significant gender difference between the competence scores, there was a statistically significant difference between female and male interest in science communication ( p < 0.05) with a moderate effect size where r = 0.22, showing that women in this study expressed a higher interest in science communication ( Fig 6 , S1 File (S3 Table)). We also confirmed a statistically significant difference between the means for performance/competence (but not interest) between participants who have had prior TA/teaching experience and those who have not with a moderate effect size where r = 0.20. In summary, women in this study showed a higher interest in science communication, and those participants with previous teaching experience showed a higher mean performance/competence score than those without prior teaching experience ( Fig 6 , S1 File (S3 Table)). These results can serve as a basis for future studies and can be used to guide new training programs.

The ability to communicate effectively is an important skill for scientists regardless of career path; therefore, science communication training should be an integral component of graduate-level coursework. In this study, we expand the knowledge base on how current STEM graduate students define science communication, how they practice and engage in science communication, and how they envision their future as science communication practitioners. STEM graduate students’ lived experiences as future science communicators are characterized through data presented here.

STEM graduate students have a very complex and multi-faceted view of science communication (Tables 1 – 4 ). This is encouraging, as participants in this study, who represent the future of science communication, view science communication in line with our initial definition: scientists sharing their work inside their community and science with non-experts [ 1 ]. Collectively, participants report science communication encompassing various skills, audiences, platforms, and purposes. Perhaps most inspiring about this data is the emphasis of two-way communication tactics, such as knowing your audience, establishing relationships, and tailoring your messages based on your audiences’ needs (Tables 1 and 8 ). Two-way communication is essential for successful science communication between scientists and the public, and thus the importance of emphasizing it more during science communication training is critical [ 34 ]. Participants in this study already seem to embrace this concept, suggesting that they are primed and ready for their future roles as science communicators.

We learn a little more about how graduate students see themselves as science communicators, specifically with regards to the general public. The performance/competence data from Fig 6 , which refer to an individual’s confidence levels in relation to their disciplinary community, which, for this study, is the science communication community, are relatively high, suggesting that participants in this study have confidence in their ability to communicate with the public. Roughly half of the participant sample (55%) reported engaging in general science concepts with the general public, which is just slightly higher than the 49% who reported communicating their thesis research, suggesting that participants are equally likely to share their thesis work as they are general science. While we do see some instances of imposter syndrome, for example 27% reported feeling unqualified to speak on research outside of their area of expertise ( Table 5 ), these seem to be the minority of responses. Collectively, participants seem to be comfortable communicating with the public. While we did not specifically ask whether students consider themselves to be expert or novice communicators, or where they would place themselves on this spectrum, these would be interesting topics for future research studies on how graduate students explicitly identify as science communicators. Expert–novice comparisons are valuable research tools as they provide practical insights into how to aid novices in developing more expert-like skills and learning more about what the expert-novice science communication spectrum looks like would be useful in developing best practices for science communication training.

Seventy two percent of participants responded “no” to the question, “Did you have formal science communication training, for a public audience, at your graduate institution?” This means either that the opportunity to did not exist at participants’ graduate institutions or the opportunity existed but was unknown to the participant. Coupled with the fact that students received no incentives to complete this survey, this result becomes even more disappointing, as this population likely self-selected from students with an understanding of and interest in science communication who may have been acutely aware of and/or actively seeking out offerings through their institution.

A separate dataset in this study investigated whether graduate students received training in 11 core science communication skills ( Fig 4 ). While the majority of participants reported training in 8 out of 11 skills, these data show that more science communication training takes place outside graduate institutions than within graduate institutions for 10 of the 11 core skills.

Taken together, these datasets are sobering, because whether or not science communication trainings are formally offered through graduate institutions is, at its core, an equity issue. When offered as a part of graduate school, science communication training can be built into students’ course load, accepted and respected by advisors, and paid for with tuition credits or waivers. When students are instead compelled to leave their institutions to seek these trainings, trainings become available only to those students who have the time, support, and financial means, as well as those who are aware of existing opportunities, which these data show to be the biggest barrier to science communication training ( Table 7 ).

Formally including science communication training and opportunities into graduate curricula would remove not only the barriers listed above, but alleviate additional barriers found in these data including, the view that science communication is unnecessary, students being too busy for science communication, and students being unable to take time away from the lab ( Table 7 ). Two additional barriers listed in the dataset, overstepping expertise and nerves, both can be overcome with practice and exposure, further reinforcing the need to make science communication opportunities a part of the official graduate school curricula. Additionally, when asked what additional training students need, the number one response was to include training in graduate student curricula ( Table 9 ). While changing graduate school curricula is not trivial, these data point to a single solution that would remove several different barriers. Lifting barriers is a step closer to a more equitable environment.

Data presented in this study also provides the graduate student perspective in the larger conversation larger conversation regarding what should be key characteristics of science communication trainings, and can be used as a blueprint for designing future science communication trainings that are formally offered by graduate institutions. When asked what additional training participants would need, results were again multifaceted ( Table 9 ). Requests for training in two-way communication are prevalent, as are requests for general training in public speaking, both of which suggest future science communicators who are truly interested in connecting with their audiences. Perhaps most inspiring are the requests for learning how to turn research into a narrative and how to bring more storytelling to science communication, an aspect of science communication that is currently being promoted and encouraged in research studies and trainings [ 35 ].

STEM graduate students will serve as science ambassadors throughout their careers; thus it is imperative that we hear from graduate students about their science communication training experiences, how they define science communication, how they have engaged in the process of science communication, and how they envision the future of science communication training. Graduate school administrators and all other stakeholders should consider these data when creating science communication training to ensure equitable and impactful opportunities for all.

Supporting information

S1 questionnaire. grad student attitudes towards science communication..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274840.s001

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274840.s002

S1 Data. Survey data.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274840.s003

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• 31. Cohen J. Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. Routledge; 2013. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203771587

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• 02 August 2019

How I switched from academia to science communication

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Evguenia Alechine is a freelance science-communications specialist, and programme leader of the Medical Writing Organization, part of the Cheeky Scientist Association.

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Like many PhD students, I found the last year in the lead-up to my thesis submission the hardest of my life. I was struggling every day with writing my dissertation: I didn’t think that my results were meaningful or that I deserved the degree.

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Introduction: Why Science Communication?

Dan M. Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School. He is a member of the Cultural Cognition Project, an interdisciplinary team of scholars who use empirical methods to examine the impact of group values on perceptions of risk and science communication.

Dietram A. Scheufele is the John E. Ross Professor in Science Communication and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in the Morgridge Institute for Research. His research deals with the interface of media, policy and public opinion.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, the Walter and Leonore Director of the university’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, and the program director of the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands. She is the author or coauthor of fifteen books, five of which have received a total of eight political science or communication book awards.

• Published: 06 June 2017
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The introductory chapter defines a science of science communication, examines efforts to advance scholarship in this area, provides an overview of the contents within the six parts of the handbook, and indicates ways in which communication about the Zika virus relates to each of those parts and to chapters within them.

Ironically, those communicating about science often rely on intuition rather than scientific inquiry not only to ascertain what effective messaging looks like but also to determine how to engage different audiences about emerging technologies and get science’s voice heard. For decades, one plausible explanation for this state of affairs was the relative absence of empirical work in science communication. This is no longer a problem. As the essays in this volume confirm, researchers in fields as diverse as political science, decision science, communication, and sociology have examined how science can best be communicated in different social settings and in the process have evaluated different approaches to cultivating societal engagement about emerging technologies. A central task of the work in this handbook is distilling what they know about the science of science communication and unpacking how they know it.

By the science of science communication, we mean an empirical approach to defining and understanding audiences, designing messages, mapping communication landscapes, and—most important—evaluating the effectiveness of communication efforts. The science of science communication, as a result, relies on evidence that is transparent and replicable, theory driven, and generalizable. In short, evidence is derived by the scientific method, drawing on theories and methods from disciplines including economics, sociology, psychology, education, and communications science. What makes science communication distinctive is the fact that science’s way of knowing places constraints on communication that are not present in the same way in other forms of communication—for instance, communication about politics. The distinctive nature of science communication is discussed in Chapter 1 .

The audience we envision for this book includes scholars and students interested in understanding the pitfalls and promise of a scientific approach to science communication as well as, but not primarily, those on the front lines tasked with communicating complex and sometimes controversial science to policymakers and the public on consequential topics ranging from nanotechnology and nuclear power to the need for vaccination.

The Science of Science Communication

In 2012, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine took a leadership role in connecting a community of social scientists who were conducting empirical research on different aspects of science communication. Two Sackler Colloquia and two special issues of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences devoted to the “Science of Science Communication” were the result (Fischhoff and Scheufele 2013 , 2014 ). Their intent was both to heighten awareness among bench scientists about empirically based approaches to better communicating science and to promote the exchange of ideas among social scientists working on problems related to science communication in various (sub)disciplines.

Built on the foundations laid by those Sackler Colloquia, this volume is predicated on three major assumption. First, science is not monolithic. Second, the aspects of science or its applications that are being communicated or debated are a function of the nature of the science itself, the types of applications made possible by science or their societal implications, and the social dynamics surrounding emerging science. Finally, communication is an inevitable part of the process of characterizing scientific findings, engagement among scientists about them, and the process of sharing them with policymakers and diverse publics.

This Handbook

The handbook parses its exploration of the science of science communication into 47 essays organized into a six-part structure:

An overview of the science of science communication

Identifying and overcoming challenges to science featured in attacks on science

Failures and successes in communicating science

The roles of elite intermediaries in communicating science

The role, power, and peril of media for the communication of science

Overcoming challenges in communicating science in a polarized environment

In the model implied by this framework, scientists and elite intermediaries such as scholarly associations and governmental agencies communicate scientific norms, methods, and findings directly on websites and in scholarly publications and indirectly through communication outlets while also having their messages prioritized and framed by news and entertainment media as well as by political leaders and partisans. Various publics process both these exchanges and elite and mediated messages through the wide range of human biases that either can aid them in making sense of what matters to them or distort messages and meanings. Throughout this process, the public can be actively engaged or bypassed with sometimes unforeseen results.

As we were preparing to turn these chapters over to our extraordinary Oxford editor, Joan Bossert, and her talented team, the summer 2016 escalation of the Zika threat in the United States and ongoing concerns about the risks it posed to Olympians at the Summer Games in Rio provided an opportunity for us to test the serviceability of our handbook’s six-part structure. At the same time, this situation invited us to ask whether material in the book can provide principles of use to respond to a health challenge (and a result of a science communication problem) not anticipated when the volume was commissioned. In short, can the science of science communication guide a response that increases the likelihood of policy guided by science, better behavioral outcomes, and an informed debate about the risks and benefits of different solutions without triggering a polarized denial of what science knows?

To address these questions, we inflected this forecast of the contents of this book with tales of a virus so stealthy that most of those infected have no idea that they are. Nonetheless, being infected with this mosquito-borne and also sexually transmitted virus is associated with an increased likelihood of Guillain-Barré—temporary paralysis—and with a heightened chance that a pregnant woman will deliver an infant with microcephaly—a smaller than usual head and defective brain. Frustratingly for health officials, there is not yet a vaccine for Zika on the market, although one is being tested, nor is there a treatment. Raising the stakes for communicators is the fact that more than 60% of the US population — about 200 million individuals — reside in areas susceptible to the spread of Zika from biting female Aedes mosquitoes. As we write this introduction, “The disease has ‘explosive’ pandemic potential, with outbreaks in Africa, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas” ( Lucey and Gostin 2016 , E1). So what help, if any, do the handbook’s six clusters of chapters offer the scholar trying to understand the communication dynamics at play in this complex messaging environment?

Overview of the Science of Science Communication

The “science communication environment” is the interaction of processes and cues that citizens, organizations, governments, and a host of other stakeholders use to identify valid science and align it with their value systems, understanding of the world, and ultimately decisions. A central theme implicit in all the chapters in the first section is the idea that the amount of science that one must accept as valid exceeds the amount that any individual could ever be expected to comprehend much less verify for him- or herself. To attain the benefit of the collective knowledge at their disposal, members of a modern democratic society must become experts not in any particular form (much less all forms) of decision-relevant science but rather at reliably discerning who knows what about what ( Kahan 2015 ; Keil 2010 ).

The first section of the book spells out the essential features of science communication as an emerging area of scientific inquiry. Central to this section is a synthesis by Heather Akin and Dietram A. Scheufele (Chapter 2 ) on what we know about the science of science communication. Various chapters help to fill in what empirical study has taught us. To focus attention on the sorts of cues science communicators are actually transmitting, William Hallman, for example, discusses how little the public actually knows about science and why that does not generally matter for its effective use of scientific knowledge (Chapter 5 ). In the case of Zika, one cannot assume that the public knows the difference between a viral and a bacterial infection or is aware that it is the female mosquito that bites. But one can assume that the public is likely to trust recommendations offered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This fact is particularly important when the communication climate is filled with issues in the process of being sorted out. “We don’t really know where these mosquitos are in the US,” CDC Director Tom Frieden stated in his early March 2016 appeal for Congress to appropriate the emergency funds requested by the Obama administration for Zika research. “The maps that are on our website are very clearly tagged with the comment that they are both incomplete and out of date” ( Branswell 2016a ). “We don’t have anything we can use today to screen the blood supply for Zika,” reported Brian Custer, associate director of Blood Systems Research Institute ( Seipel 2016 ). “As the weeks and months go by, we learn more and more about how much we don’t know, and the more we learn the worse things seem to get,” head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci told reporters on March 10, 2016 ( Sun 2016 ). Yet within weeks both concerns had been addressed. By late March the CDC had placed update maps on its site. And by March 30, 2016, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it had okayed an experimental test to screen blood donations for the virus and the CDC had posted prevention guidelines and an action plan for vulnerable cities.

Mike S. Schäfer adds depth to this perspective by discussing how media structures affect science news coverage (Chapter 4 ). Some of these constructions of the voice of science come with necessary debates and sometimes even controversy about ethical or political questions raised by emerging science. Persistent states of public controversy over established, decision-relevant science, however, can damage the science communication environment. Protecting it from such damage is one of the aims of the science of science communication.

This is the central message of the chapter by Dan Kahan and Asheley Landrum (Chapter 17 ) on vaccines, where systematic neglect of the science communication environment led to the controversy over the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in the United States and is today exposing universal childhood immunizations to similar controversy. Bruce Lewenstein reinforces this message by putting scientific controversies in an historical context (Chapter 6 ).

How to protect the science communication environment is the focus of the opening chapter (“The Need for a Science of Science Communication: Communicating Science’s Values and Norms”). In it, Kathleen Hall Jamieson argues that “the communicating scientist needs to focus on definitions and linguistic choices because failing to do so mucks up the science … [and] confuses policy debates” (Chapter 1 ). One of the central contentions of this essay is one threaded throughout the handbook— naming and framing matter—a point that the Zika science communication readily illustrates. Was Zika an “epidemic” or an “emerging health threat”? It was an “epidemic” according to the Rapid Response Assessment of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control in December 2015 (“Rapid Risk Assessment” 2016) but “an emerging health threat” according to the blog of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Dr. Francis Collins (2016) .

These characterizations will predictably have an impact on public comprehension of Zika. The effect, of course, is unlikely to reflect how ordinary members reacted to these particular communications; little of what ordinary citizens know about science is a consequence of what they have heard a scientist or an institutionally based science communicator say. But the information that ultimately does reach citizens starts with statements that these actors make. How scientists and those speaking in their name express themselves can affect the career of information as it makes its way through the complex of intermediaries and institutions and processes that the science communication environment comprises. Given how valuable what scientists have to tell citizens is, failing to use the science of science communication to increase the chances that they express it in the terms most conductive to its uneventful passage through these pathways is problematic.

Each step of this process could draw insight from the understanding advanced by Akin and Scheufele’s synthesis (Chapter 2 ) of what we know about the science of science communication, Hallman’s assessment of what the public knows about science and why it matters (Chapter 5 ), Dan Kahan’s report on ordinary science knowledge and why communicating science in a polarized environment poses special challenges (Chapter 3 ), Schäfer’s precis of how media structures affect science news coverage (Chapter 4 ), and Lewenstein’s reprise of the lessons to be learned from scientific controversies in an historical context (Chapter 6 ).

Identifying and Overcoming Challenges Featured in Attacks on Science

The overall credibility of science and scientists is higher than that of many communities ( Scheufele 2013 ), with only military leaders eliciting greater public confidence than the scientific community in 2014 ( General Social Survey 2012). Nevertheless, popular understanding of how scientists generate knowledge is freighted with misleading simplifications. The gap between how people think science works and how it actually does can itself generate confusion that undermines public confidence.

Climate science communication furnishes a case in point. The popular conception of the “scientific method” envisions scientists “proving” or “disproving” asserted “facts” through conclusive experiments. The contribution that climate science makes to policymaking, however, consists less of experimentally corroborating basic climate mechanisms, most of which are well-known, than it does of establishing how they interact with one another. To generate such understanding, climate scientists use dynamic models, which are iteratively refined and adjusted to take account of new data. Discrepancies between model forecasts and subsequently observed data are expected—indeed, they are the source of progressive improvements in understanding. By design, dynamic modeling enlarges knowledge through its failed predictions as much as through its successful ones ( Silver 2012 ).

Not only did science communicators fail to make this element of climate science clear to the public, but over the past decade, many of them adopted communication “strategies” that elided it. To promote the urgency of action, they depicted the projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports—particularly those of the Fourth Assessment—as extrapolations from settled and incontrovertible scientific findings. But because this framing was selected to accommodate the popular understanding that science warrants confidence based on experimentally “proven” facts, it made climate science more vulnerable to attack by those intent on undermining public confidence in it when, as was anticipated by scientists themselves, actual data diverged from the climate-science model forecasts.

The 2001–2014 slowing in the acceleration of global temperature increase—a development not forecast by the IPCC Fourth Assessment model—had this effect. Predictably, climate scientists themselves were untroubled by this finding, viewing it as a development to be used to improve their models (Tollefson 2014). Partisans opposed to specific forms of climate change mitigation or prevention, however, highlighted this “failed prediction” as evidence of the invalidity of basic climate science.

The public’s comprehension of the threat posed by Zika could be undermined by this same misunderstanding. Like climate scientists, epidemiologists use iterative, dynamic modeling when forecasting the likely transmission of infectious diseases. The first generation of such models has now been developed for Zika ( Monaghan et al. 2016 ). Actual transmission patterns will—inevitably and instructively— vary from the predictions of these models too.

Will this discrepancy, highlighted by conflict entrepreneurs with a stake in casting doubt on the Zika science, undermine public confidence? It is the job of science communicators to try to forestall this result and avoid engaging in behavior that makes it more likely. The material in the second section of the book is designed to promote these objectives, in the case of the Zika science communication challenge and future ones as well. If the recommendations found in these essays are adopted, the public will be more likely to greet new findings — for example, about the Zika-microcephaly and Guillain-Barré links — aware that science is iterative and self-correcting and not perceive it through a prism that has exaggerated the originality and significance of individual studies (Peter Weingart, Chapter 11 ), prevalence and significance of failures to replicate key findings (Joseph Hilgard and Jamieson, Chapter 8 ), bias in the publication process (Andrew Brown, Tapan Mehta, and David Allison, Chapter 9 ), salient retractions of seemingly consequential work (Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky, Chapter 12 ), and exposés of statistical chicanery (John Ioannidis, Chapter 10 ).

Failures and Successes

The science communication difficulties posed by Zika are not singular. Instead, they are instances of a class of such challenges, all of which feature conditions with the potential to disrupt one or another element of the science communication environment—the sum total of institutions, process, and cues that normally enable members of the public to align their decisions with what is known by science.

The failure of valid, compelling, and widely accessible scientific evidence to minimize public controversy over risks and evidence is a consequence of such disruption. Yet only a subset of the class of risk issues that could experience this problem ever does. Indeed, as Kahan and Landrum argue (Chapter 17 ), the number of societal risks that could plausibly experience what they call the “science communication problem” but do not is orders of magnitude larger than the number that do. There is no meaningful degree of public controversy over the impact of routine medical x-rays, exposure to the magnetic fields of high-voltage power lines, or the consumption of fluoridated water. But if there were, that would not seem any weirder than controversy over the dangers of geologic isolation of nuclear wastes, the carcinogenic effects of various pesticides or food additives, or the medicinal benefits of marijuana. As Kahan and Landrum indicate, the US public is (or at least was) highly polarized on the risks and benefits of immunizing adolescents against HPV, a sexually transmitted pathogen that causes cervical cancer, but it was not—at the very same time that a debate was raging over proposals for making the HPV vaccine mandatory as a condition of middle school enrollment—on universally immunizing adolescents against hepatitis B, another sexually transmitted disease that causes cancer (the shot is now administered to infants). The general public in Europe is culturally polarized over genetically modified (GM) foods; it is less so in the United States (see Hallman, Chapter 5 ).

As they craft the communication strategies that will determine how and to what ends science communicators will address various publics about Zika, those messengers have available cross-national lessons of the recent and distant past. In the section of the book telescoping failures and successes, our authors capsulize what we can learn from consequential successes and mistakes in communicating about food safety before and during the “mad cow” crisis (Matteo Ferrari, Chapter 14 ), HPV and hepatitis B vaccination (Kahan and Landrum, Chapter 17 ), the risks of nanotechnologies (Nick Pidgeon, Barbara Herr Harthorn, Terre Satterfield, and Christina Demski, Chapter 15 ), biotechnologies and genetically modified organisms (GMOs; Heinz Bonfadelli, Chapter 16 ).

Elite Intermediaries as Communicators of Science

As we noted earlier, the public is likely to learn less about Zika from the words spoken by scientists than it will from information transmitted to it via a host of intermediaries. Some of these will be institutions—such as government agencies and professional science communicators—specifically charged with communicating scientific information. What should those tasked with speaking for scientists do to protect the Zika science communication environment from consequential misinformation? What should they be doing to avoid past mistakes?

Of course, most members of the public will not learn what science knows about Zika from directly hearing what any of these institutions say either. They will garner it instead from other ordinary members of the public or from their family physician (Kahan, Chapter 3 ). Those interactions, the science of science communication tells us, are consequential elements in the science communication environment. In the case of Zika, for example, scientists might conclude that the most effective protective measures include the release of transgenic mosquitos or the administration of a Zika vaccine to some parts of the general population or all of it. How might the public react to these proposals? There is ample experimental evidence suggesting that the impact of what scientists or science communicators say to the public at that point will not matter as much as interactions among members of the public who share their basic outlooks and commitments, which may have already disposed them to reject what those authorities are saying ( Nyhan et al. 2014 ; Gollust 2010; Kahan et al. 2010 ). Similarly, the likelihood of agreeing to be vaccinated against Zika, once a vaccine exists, will probably be determined by the behavior and messaging of a family physician ( Smith et al. 2006 ). Accordingly, if they want to be guided by the best evidence on science communication, institutions charged with communicating science should not limit themselves simply to speaking to the public. They should play an active role in structuring how members of the public communicate among themselves.

However, interpersonal channels of communication within like-minded communities can fuel the spread of viral misinformation and conspiracy theories. In the absence of conclusive evidence that Zika was responsible for the rise in cases of microcephaly in Brazil and elsewhere, such theories predictably festered. Those suspicious of GMOs harnessed that fear to early uncertainty about cause of the outbreak of microcephaly in Brazil to seed a viral rumor blaming the outbreak there on the transgenic mosquito bred to minimize the transmission of malaria, dengue, and now Zika by ensuring that its offspring did not reproduce. Although that cause was discredited by the fact that the outbreak and site of the experimental release were in different locales, and no Zika associated with other genetically engineered mosquito test sites, when a national random sample of the US population was asked in July 2016 whether GM mosquitoes caused the spread of the Zika virus, 20% reported that they did. And, due to shards of Internet misinformation, in May 2016 the same Annenberg Science Knowledge Survey (ASK) found that 32% accepted the notion that the real cause of the Zika outbreak was prior inoculations.

Those making decisions about how to talk to the public about Zika are among the players treated in the handbook’s fourth section on the role of elite intermediaries in communicating and implementing science. In this part of the book we include chapters on scholarly presses (Barbara Kline Pope and Elizabeth Marincola, Chapter 20 ), governmental agencies (Jeffery Morris, Chapter 21 ), museums (Victoria Cain and Karen Rader, Chapter 22 ), foundations (Elizabeth Good Christopherson, Chapter 23 ), and scholarly associations (Tiffany Lohwater and Martin Storksdieck, Chapter 19 ). Essays in this section also construct an understanding of science and the assessment of responses to evidence it offers.

Citizen engagement will play a key role in determining whether possible experimental release of transgenic mosquitoes occurs in Florida and whether the eventual development and approval of a Zika vaccine will be met with widespread adoption or with controversy and rejection. Can insights generated by the science of science communication guide those involved in the process of increasing public understanding of the science involved in each and also ensure that that science plays a role in public and policymakers’ deliberations about such issues regarding whether the transgenic mosquito should be released, and if so where and how, and whether vaccination should be required of school-aged children? The closing essays in this section offer clues from past efforts to communicate science through public deliberation (see John Gastil’s Chapter 25 “Designing Public Deliberation at the Intersection of Science and Public Policy”) and social networks (see Brian Southwell’s Chapter 24 “Promoting Popular Understanding of Science and Health through Social Networks”) while also capturing what we know about the translation of science into policy (Jason Gallo, Chapter 26 ).

The Media Landscape

The media are another critical intermediary institution. Their role, moreover, is likely to be decisive not only in conveying accurate information but in countering inaccurate claims injected into the pathways of the science communication environment by those intent on misleading the public on Zika.

Adding complexity to these questions, the media landscape for science is undergoing a dramatic transformation as a result of new information technologies. A person seeking Zika information is less likely to look for it in the newspaper than on the Internet. One result is wider access to direct forms of communication from scientists unmediated by traditional media gatekeepers. On the Web today one can, for example, find an American Public Health Association webinar titled “ The Zika Crisis: Latest Findings” (2016) featuring NIH director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Anthony Fauci, as well as the NIH director’s blog with a detailed posting on “Zika Virus: An Emerging Health Threat” ( Collins 2016 ) and the CDC Zika data on Github as well as the World Health Organization app that “gathers all of WHO’s guidance for agencies and individuals involved in the response to Zika Virus.” (“WHO Launches the Zika APP” 2016).

The Web also provides venues for scholar-to-scholar communication in forms including Web-based specialty publications such as Medical News Today (MNT) that detail the questions for which scientists are seeking answers, including “Why are the symptoms in adults so mild? How is the virus entering the nervous system of the developing fetus? How is the virus crossing the blood-brain barrier once it enters the blood? [And] Could Zika infect the small population of neural stem cells that, in adults, reside above the brain stem in the hippocampus?” ( Brazier 2016 ). Those interested in eavesdropping on science in action can do so by reading MNT, where one will find conclusions such as “While not proving a direct link between Zika and microcephaly, the present study does pinpoint where the virus may be causing the most damage” ( Brazier 2016 ). Unanswered questions are featured as well. The NIH director’s blog notes that scientists are trying to discover how readily Asian tiger mosquitoes, “which can tolerate relatively cold temperatures, spread Zika virus” ( Collins 2016 ). For the lay person who wants an efficient way to track ongoing news coverage, STAT, a Web news outlet directed by former New York Times political editor Rick Berke, posts regular updates under the banner “Zika in 30 Seconds” (2016) that include state-of-the-art videos answering commonly asked questions about Zika and efforts to combat it.

Although we address the topic throughout the handbook, the ways in which science information is conveyed through the media is the special focus of Section 5. The research unpacked here includes a cross-national analysis on: “The (Changing) Nature of Scientist–Media Interactions” (Sara Yeo and Dominique Brossard, Chapter 28 ), “New Models of Knowledge-Based Journalism” (Matthew Nisbet and Declan Fahy, Chapter 29 ), “Citizens Making Sense of Science Issues: Supply and Demand Factors for Science News and Information in the Digital Age” (Michael Xenos, Chapter 30 ), “The Changing Popular Images of Science” (David Kirby, Chapter 31 ), “What Do We Know About the Entertainment Industry’s Portrayal of Science” (James Shanahan, Chapter 32 ), “How Narrative Functions in Entertainment to Communicate Science” (Martin Kaplan and Michael Dahlstrom, Chapter 33 ), and “Assumptions about Science in Satirical News and Late Night Comedy” (Lauren Feldman, Chapter 34 ).

Challenges in Communicating Science in a Polarized Environment: Overcoming Biased Processing in an Era of Polarized Politics

People are imperfect information processors. Decision science has documented cognitive biases that interfere with individuals’ appropriate evaluation of evidence on risk ( Slovic 2000 ). Understanding the nature of these biases and how they can be counteracted are major objectives of the science of science communication.

Such biases pose an obvious impediment to the effective communication of information on a public health risk such as Zika. So, for example, the affect heuristic and cultural cognition can combine to reproduce about Zika the same reason-threatening states of political polarization that deformed public understanding of science on nuclear power and that impede effective engagement with climate change science. Hence, a number of chapters ask: How can democratic societies use the science of science communication to forestall this possibility?

Complicating matters further, political battles over reallocation of funding to communicate about Zika, prepare for a potential outbreak, and search for treatment and vaccines forced scientists and leaders of agencies to make predictions about areas of greatest need in a still fluid scientific environment. This process happened in a presidential campaign year with key members of the House and Senate facing reelection as they battled over approval of a White House funding request in February to authorize $1.9 billion for the Zika fight. When this debate polarized over funding of Planned Parenthood and a proposed Republican regulatory roll-back of Environmental Protection Agency pesticide regulation, as of August 2016, no additional congressional funds had been authorized.

Because concerns about Zika can foreseeably be harnessed to those about immigration, vaccination, GMOs, abortion, evolution, and climate change ( Kahan et al. 2017 )—contentious issues in which ideological partisans have hardened into evidence-resistant positions—the risk that polarized politics would corrupt policy decision-making and thwart the efforts of the CDC, NIH, and the World Health Organization was real. Actions by some worked to sidetrack that impulse. Although in 1968 the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae had prohibited use of contraception, in 2016 Pope Francis invoked an exception made in the 1960s in the case of nuns in danger of rape and declared that pregnant women in Zika-infected areas could in good conscience use contraception to prevent contracting the virus.

On the horizon were three other polarizing issues. The arrival of evidence that the Aedes mosquito was developing resistance to permethrin—the pesticide the CDC website urges people to apply to their clothing to repel mosquitoes—put evolution at play ( Branswell 2016b ). Since the transgenic mosquito provided a possible way to diminish the Aedes population, the GMO debate was at the fore as well. Global warming entered the conversation as news accounts noted that, over time, warmer temperatures could accelerate the spread of the Zika-carrying mosquito north.

Dan Kahan’s essay (Chapter 44 ) on communicating science in a “polluted science communication environment” addresses issues such as these. The antagonistic social meanings that transform positions on risks and facts into badges of membership in and loyalty to cultural groups are a form of science communication pollution because they disable the faculties that enable diverse groups to converge on the best available evidence.

Cultural cognition (in this pathological form at least) is only one of the recurring forms of defective information processing that threatens to distort assessments of risks on Zika ( Kahan et al. 2017 ). Others—and what can be done to combat them—figure in the handbook’s final section. Kate Kenski’s (Chapter 39 ) “Overcoming Confirmation and Blind Spot Bias When Communicating Science” and Natalie Jomini Stroud’s (Chapter 40 ) “Overcoming Selective Exposure and Judgment When Communicating Science” summarize what scholars know about addressing natural human inclinations to distort information to conform to predispositions. Nan Li, Stroud, and Jamieson (Chapter 45 ) outline communication strategies available in such settings in “Overcoming False Causal Attribution: Debunking the MMR–Autism Association.” Man–pui Sally Chan, Christopher Jones, and Dolores Albarracin (Chapter 36 ) address “Countering False Beliefs: An Analysis of the Evidence and Recommendations of Best Practices for the Retraction and Correction of Scientific Misinformation.” Michael Siegrist and Christina Hartmann (Chapter 46 ) speak to ways to communicate about them in “Overcoming the Challenges of Communicating Uncertainty across National Contexts.” Jon Baron (Chapter 38 ) identifies how more general philosophical orientations can complicate effective science communication, and how that distinctive challenge might be met.

These chapters provide principles useful in dispatching the conspiracy theories generated by an increasing anxiety about Zika. So, for example, the escalating number of births of Zika-infected Brazilian infants with neurological problems fueled a viral rumor blaming the outbreak there on the transgenic mosquito bred to minimize the transmission of malaria, dengue, and now Zika by ensuring that its offspring did not reproduce. As discussed, the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s ASK national tracking poll results showed that these rumors were embraced by at least some portions of the public. The acceptance of them persisted even after scientists confirmed that Zika caused microcephaly and refuted any suggestion that the new strain originated in GM mosquitos. The essays in this section provide answers to questions such as: How should the media respond to these forms of misinformation? How can they resist being made the conduit of science communication environment pollution? What role can they play in insulating that environment from contamination emanating elsewhere?

At the same time, this sixth section of the book identifies ways to effectively frame scientific content (James Druckman and Arthur Lupia, Chapter 37 ), ways to overcome public innumeracy (Ellen Peters, Chapter 41 ), fear of the supposedly “unnatural” (Robert Lull and Dietram A. Scheufele, Chapter 43 ), end point bias (Bruce Hardy and Jamieson, Chapter 42 ), and undesirable forms of normalization (Kahan, Chapter 44 ).

Why “Just” the Science of Science Communication?

As this overview suggests, science communication is an interest shared by scientists, policymakers, journalists, audiences, and many communities of practitioners in media, museums, virtual spaces, and elsewhere. So why limit our focus here to the scientific foundations of how to best communicate about science? A first part of the answer is that thought-provoking and useful books already have been written by science communication practitioners ( Baron 2010 ), science journalists ( Blum et al. 2006 ), and bench scientists ( Olson 2010 ) on best practices, pitfalls, and the day-to-day practice of effectively communicating. Some of this work draws on empirical social science research and other on the experiences from the field. Some of these efforts complement those in this volume; others are modified or challenged by work based in the science of science communication.

A second part of the answer, however, is built on the premise that this book is the first in a series of volumes to be superintended by the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s program on the Science of Science Communication. A subsequent volume will synthesize and draw on applied work now in progress to derive primary, research-based lessons for the practice of science communication.

By contrast, here we address questions such as: Are some communication principles applicable across issues? And how can we harness existing research capacity in the science of science communication to guide efforts to better communicate emerging technologies? Toward these ends, each of the sections of this handbook is followed by a synthesis chapter that highlights the themes cutting across the chapters in the section and offers lessons for science communication more broadly. These section-ending essays also identify missing pieces of research and important unanswered questions. We hope that these ideas and agendas will help guide the next stages of the science of science communication in four domains shaping the language of science, communicating science, communicating about science, and communicating science in a polarized environment on contentious issues.

Shaping the Language of Science

The language in which scientists discuss their work is freighted with assumptions and associations. So, for instance, mental associations are triggered by terms such as “herd immunity” or “embryonic stem cell research” (see Jamieson, Chapter 1 ). Research on how different descriptions of technologies shape initial public reactions ( Anderson et al., 2013 ) shows that how we talk about emerging science and the tools matters. Aware of that fact, grant proposers describe their research as “transformative” rather than “incremental.” Findings are described as “novel” or “groundbreaking” in journal submissions. Subtle cultural nuances in how new technologies are framed can not only affect how different public and policy audiences approach them downstream but may also block or facilitate technology transfer, build unjustified hype about them, or unnecessarily narrow or expand public debate. One key question facing those studying the science of science communication is: What can we know empirically about the impact of the full range of scientists’ linguistic choices and potential alternatives on public debate?

The Communication of Science

A second domain in which science communication is central comes into play when information is transferred from the scientific community to nonexpert audiences. One form this takes is the communication of “settled” science or scientific consensus on issues, such as climate change or the safety of GMOs for human consumption. But it extends as well to communication designed to align citizen behaviors with the best available science, as is the case with messaging designed to increase or in some cases sustain high rates of vaccination against communicable diseases such as whooping cough and measles. Much of the research on how to best communicate science to particular audiences is based on experimental designs. This maximizes our ability to make causal claims. The heavy reliance on experimental work, however, also limits our ability to make clear predictions about how scalable some of the mechanisms are to larger societal settings characterized by competing information environments, influences of social groups, and other influences that are held constant in the lab. Science communication researchers will also have to collect more systematic data about how some of the processes established in the lab hold or decay over time with or without repeated exposure to the same messages.

Communication about Science

A third domain of science communication involves deliberation about the boundaries within which science should work. This discussion pivots on ethical, political, or regulatory issues that fall into the domain of philosophy, not science. The notion that the public has a role in addressing the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of evolving technologies emerged as part of the Human Genome Initiative in 1990 ( Watson 1990 ) and is now cast by the Obama administration as responsible development:

To the extent feasible … relevant information should be developed with ample opportunities for stakeholder involvement and public participation. Public participation is important for promoting accountability, for improving decisions, for increasing trust, and for ensuring that officials have access to widely dispersed information. ( Holdren et al. 2011 , 2)

A growing body of empirical work asks how to best structure efforts to involve public stakeholders in some of these broader debates about ELSI issues. Many of these efforts rely on consensus conferences or other forms of public meetings ( Scheufele 2011 ) and often struggle with an inability to capture opinions from an exhaustive and representative set of relevant stakeholders ( Binder et al. 2012 ; Merkle 1996 ). The challenge for the field of science of science communication will be providing data-driven guidance on how to translate some of the mandates on responsible innovation into effective day-to-day science communication practice.

Communicating Science in Polarized Policy Debates

A fourth domain in which communication is implicated occurs when scientific findings are at issue in partisan regulatory and policy debates (Jasanoff 2007; Pielke 2007 ) One issue here is when, if at all, and, if so, how, is it appropriate for the climate scientist, for example, to engage in policy discussions. Some argue that scientists should serve as honest brokers of information and translate those data into policy. Others contend that the scientist’s role should be limited to ensuring that what science knows is clearly and accurately presented and then step back while leaving policy concerns to others.

These different domains of science communication are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive. In fact, they are closely interrelated. The case that we threaded through this introduction—the recent cross-continent spread of the Zika virus with its related health risks of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré—illustrates some of these interconnected dynamics.

In a 2006 editorial, Ralph Cicerone, then president of the National Academy of Sciences, identified many of the problems facing the science–public interface. Disappearing news holes for science and the thinning ranks of science journalists led him to attribute some responsibility for bridging science–public divides to scientists themselves who — he argued — “must do a better job of communicating directly to the public.” As we noted at the beginning of this introduction, we as social scientists have exacerbated the problem by not being as proactive as we might have been in conducting research that offers policy-relevant insights and have also failed to seek audiences outside our disciplines. To address these lapses, this handbook digests the social science of science communication in areas relevant to closing science–public divides, assesses its strengths and limitations, and identifies areas in which additional research is needed.

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Holdren, John P. , Cass R. Sunstein , and Islam A. Siddiqui . ( 2011 ). Memorandum: Principles for regulation and oversight of emerging technologies. Washington, DC: Office of Science and Technology Policy.

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Kahan, Dan , Donald Braman , Geoffrey Cohen , John Gastil , and Paul Slovic . ( 2010 ). Who fears the HPV vaccine, who doesn’t, and why? An experimental study of the mechanisms of cultural cognition.   Law and Human Behavior, 34(6), 501–516.

Kahan, D. M. ( 2015 ). What is the “science of science communication”?   Journal of Science Communication , 14(3), 1–12.

Kahan, D. M. , K. H. Jamieson , A. Landrum & K. Winneg . ( 2017 ). Culturally antagonistic memes and the Zika virus: an experimental test.   Journal of Risk Research , 20, 1–40.

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Merkle, D. M. ( 1996 ). The polls—Review—The National Issues Convention Deliberative Poll.   Public Opinion Quarterly, 60(4), 588–619.

Monaghan, Andrew , Cory W. Morin , Daniel F. Steinhoff , Olga Wilhelmi , Mary Hayden , Dale A. Quattrochi , et al. ( 2016 ). On the seasonal occurrence and abundance of the Zika virus vector mosquito Aedes aegypti in the contiguous United States.   PLOS Currents Outbreaks, Edition 1, March 16. doi:10.1371/currents.outbreaks.50dfc7f46798675fc63e7d7da563da76 10.1371/currents.outbreaks.50dfc7f46798675fc63e7d7da563da76

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Course info, instructors.

• Prof. Michael Short
• Jane Kokernak
• Christine Sherratt

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• Nuclear Science and Engineering

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• Academic Writing

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Undergraduate thesis tutorial, teaching science communication.

In this section, Prof. Michael Short discusses the importance of teaching science communication and shares challenges students in 22.THT NSE Undergraduate Thesis Tutorial faced in this domain.

What is Science?

"If an individual discovers a law of nature, but doesn’t communicate it, that information dies with the individual and it returns to the domain of nature—it doesn’t become part of science."

During the course, I posed the following question to students: “What is science?” Students responded, “It’s following the scientific method,” and “It’s discovering the laws of nature.” I pushed them further, asking, “If someone does science in a forest, but doesn’t make a sound, did science actually happen?” This question confused students. “What the heck do you mean?” they asked.

I explained that individuals uncover the laws of nature and bring them into a collective body of knowledge, called science. If an individual discovers a law of nature, but doesn’t communicate it, that information dies with the individual and it returns to the domain of nature—it doesn’t become part of science. Science is equal parts careful discovery of the laws of nature and effective communication. They’re inseparable. Without either component, understanding does not advance.

Recognizing the Need to Teach Science Communication

In surveys, MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering alumni tell us that we need to improve our science communication efforts; they note that science communication is essential to the work they do in their careers and that they don’t feel adequately prepared.

I think the School of Engineering is now recognizing just how important it is to actively teach science communication. A few departments—so far, Biological Engineering, Nuclear Science and Engineering, and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science—have launched communication labs staffed by Graduate Fellows who are both excellent communicators and content experts. This is progress.

We try to support our students in the course by requiring that they have their prospectuses reviewed by Graduate Fellows in the Nuclear Science & Engineering Communication Lab . Among other things, these Fellows help students communicate effectively with audiences in their specific academic fields.

Contextualizing Research for an Audience

Contextualizing their writing and oral presentations for specific audiences is one of the biggest communication challenges students in 22.THT NSE Undergraduate Thesis Tutorial face. Students tend not to have been taught to think about their audiences. I see this even at the graduate level. When students are asked to give a seminar, they present their research in its entirety. Sometimes, it’s just a slide full of words, and the goal seems to be to make it to the end of the seminar. That shouldn’t be the goal. The goal should be to communicate their knowledge effectively. Students need to think about how to ensure that their audience is engaging with the information they are presenting.

In written communication, writing for a particular audience is of central importance because it shapes the content of the paper, including the paper’s citations. Most students tend to assume that their readers understand what they’re writing about (which is not necessarily true) and, as a result, they don’t cite sources extensively enough. And then some of them cite sources too extensively. They’ll cite Ohm’s law, or the ideal gas law. If their audience is comprised of scientists, they can assume their audience knows these laws. No citations are necessary. It became apparent during the course that knowing when and how much to cite was a struggle for students. 

Identifying Credible Primary Sources

Students also struggled with identifying credible primary sources. Many, for instance, considered Wikipedia to be a credible primary source. Wikipedia is not a credible primary source. Wikipedia can lead students to credible primary sources, but it can also lead them to blogs and magazine articles – sources that are not peer-reviewed. Students were aware that the peer review process existed, but not all of them understood it in-depth. We showed them examples of peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed sources to help them learn to distinguish between these two different kinds of resources.

And then we complicated things: we told students that not every peer-reviewed source is credible. As an example, we showed students a list of predatory open-access journals, and selected articles at random to show what absolute garbage they were. There’s a running list of about 600 indexed scientific journals that are complete hogwash. They promise review in three to seven days. You have to pay to publish. New ones pop up every day, and you’ll find that you can trace most of them back to maybe 100 people that are running them as scam businesses. Students can easily mistake papers from these journals as legitimate scientific articles, if they don’t read carefully.

During one class session, we played journal roulette. I randomly selected journals from online sources, and asked the students how they could tell if they were credible or not. Students learned to look for certain clues, such as the use of flashing text, having to pay money to submit an article, promises of 3-7 day review turnaround times, or a disreputable or falsified editorial board, to help them know when a journal was not legitimate.

Honing Hypothesis-Based Writing

Students generally know that their prospectuses should include hypotheses, but almost none of the them had one in their first drafts. To help them, I asked questions, such as, “What are you testing?” and “Can you give me a yes or no answer at the end of your study?” Students were able to describe the phenomena they were investigating, but they had to think hard about the specific mechanisms they were testing.

It’s a wide-spread problem. I’ve spoken to program managers at the Department of Energy who have said that many times even experienced principal investigators don’t frame their work in testable ways. I was amazed by how much they had to stress the need for hypothesis-driven proposals. It helped me realize that we don’t explicitly teach this aspect of science communication here at MIT. We assume students pick it up along the way, or remember the importance of including hypotheses in their writing from their high school experiences. We shouldn’t make those assumptions. Just as we expect our students to know their audiences, we, as educators, should know our own audiences and realize that this particular aspect of science communication needs to be actively taught to the novice scientists in our classrooms.

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22 The 3 Minute Thesis

Read time: 2 minutes

This chapter will provide an overview of the 3 Minute Thesis oral presentation format.

Sections in this chapter

What is it.

• 3MT examples

The three-minute thesis (3MT) is a new format of research presentation that builds on the classic “elevator pitch”. The challenge in this type of presentation is to explain your research to an intelligent non-specialist audience in under 3 minutes with limited visual aids. Often there are specific rules for the visual aid: a single 4:3 slide, no animations or video, and no props.

For a successful 3MT talk, you need to follow completely different rules from normal scientific presentations. You can skip common things like introducing yourself, thanking all your lab mates and colleagues, or funding. You typically don’t show data unless it is presented in a very simple figure.

Because of the challenge involved with presenting years of detailed research in only three minutes, Universities hold cross-faculty 3MT competitions. The first was founded by the University of Queensland, Australia, where you can find many great resources and videos .

The tips below were adapted from “10 Hints for Improving Presentations for the Three Minute Thesis” by Danielle Fischer at Charles Darwin University ( Full PDF here ):

• Don’t introduce yourself, don’t do acknowledgements, don’t show data.
• Start by introducing how your research relates to the bigger picture. Try to think of why any person might be interested in your work.
• Only include relevant things on your slide and make sure images are good quality. Carefully design your slide, don’t overcrowd it or use too much colour.
• Use simple and familiar analogies.
• Speak with an excited and engaged manner.
• Don’t wear anything distracting.
• Use body language: smiling, gestures, movement, and eye-contact.
• Finish by bringing the audience back to the big picture.
• Practice and get feedback from a wide variety of people.
• Use your time, but don’t go over it.

These are some 3MT slides made by previous CHEM 803 students.

There are many resources online about preparing a 3MT presentation. Below are some links to helpful videos, award-winning 3MT talks, and the many resources provided by Queen’s University.

Helpful Videos

These videos were prepared by are owned by Australian National University.

3MT: three tips to help you prepare a winning presentation

3MT: the three most common mistakes

Award-winning 3MT

These are videos of some award-winning 3MT talks. The first one has the best title,  it’s simple and concise!

Wind turbines and climate change – Rosemary Barnes

Hypoxia-activated pro-drugs: a novel approach for breast cancer treatment – jasdeep saggar, the development of anti-body-drug conjugate to specifically target and soften the crystalline lens in vivo – gah-jone won.

Check out the Queen’s University 2020 Competition results, where you’ll find two award-winning 3MT talks from our Chemistry Department by Morgan Lehtinen and Alastair Kierulf. [ In the video at this link, click “Playlist” to find their talks ]

Principles of Scientific Communication Copyright © 2020 by Amanda Bongers and Donal Macartney is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Science Communication Resources

Are you looking for ways to communicate the impact of your research? The Graduate School has compiled a list of internal and external resources for students looking to improve their science communication. This list includes resources for communicating with colleagues, students, journalists, and the public.

Courses Open Broadly to Graduate School Students

BIOETHICS 605: Contemporary Issues in Bioethics and Science Policy :

The course will focus on 'Professional and Scholarly Writing' (Fall) and 'Communicating Science and Bioethics' (Spring). In the fall, we delve into how and where we express ideas about bioethics and science policy in writing. We begin from first principles: Why do we write? What can good writing do for us? How do we know when we're done? During the semester we will write clear, thoughtful, analytic and creative pieces in bioethics and science policy. The spring course provides students with practical training in the communication of scientific research and bioethical issues to the media, policy makers, and the general public. Recent instructors: Michael Waitzkin, Misha Angrist, Brian Southwell

BIOETHICS 591: Topics in Science Policy

During this independent research study, students will analyze science policy developments across government, including executive and agency actions, as well as proposed legislation and judicial decisions. Students will regularly produce policy brief summaries that overview the policy, explain the science at issue, present relevant background information, provide context concerning endorsements and opposition, and expound upon related legislation and governmental actions. Instructor consent required. Recent instructors: Nita Farahany, Gopal Sreenivasan, Jory Weintraub, William Krenzer, Thomas Williams, Sharron Docherty, Kearsley Stewart, Michael Waitzkin, Michael Clamann, Aubrey Incorvaia

PUBPOL 510S: Science and the Media: Narrative writing about Science, Health, and Policy

Those who write about science, health and related policy must make complex, nuanced ideas understandable to the nonscientist in ways that are engaging and entertaining, even if the topic is far outside the reader's frame of reference. Course examines different modes of science writing, the demands of each and considers different outlets for publication and their editorial parameters. Students interview practitioners of the craft. Written assignments include annotations of readings and original narratives about science and scientists. Course considers ways in which narrative writing can inform and affect policy. Prerequisites: a 200-level science course and/or permission of the instructor. Instructor: Angrist

Courses Open to Students in Specific Departments OR PROGRAMS

Pratt school of engineering.

EGR 790: Science Communication for Engineers

Special topics course. General engineering topics intended for graduate students only. Pratt graduate students only. Instructors: Marcie Pachino, Angus Bowers

Pratt also offers the following courses that may help engineering students build communication skills more broadly.

• EGR 505: Oral Communications for Engineers
• EGR 705: Academic Presentations for Engineers
• EGR 506: Academic & Professional Writing for Engineers I
• EGR 706: Academic & Professional Writing for Engineers 2
• EGR 790: PhD Writing for Engineers
• EGR 790: PhD Academic Presentations for Engineers

University Program in Genetics and Genomics

UPGEN 700: Critical Skills in Scientific Presentations

This is a required course for first year UPGEN program. In this course, students will focus on communicating science effectively to their peers. This course has a large peer to peer interaction component. Grading is based on class participation and a final "exam" which consists of an oral presentation. This course also has a career development component, consisting of a panel discussion with senior students in the UPGEN program on choosing a thesis lab, an overview of the preliminary exam process, and a panel discussion with UPGEN program alumni who have chosen diverse career paths. UPGEN students only.

Courses for International Graduate Students

The GS courses below are open to all graduate students who may be new to writing in academic English. Engineering students should take advantage of courses through Pratt's Graduate Communications and Intercultural Programs (GCIP).

• GS726: EIS Writing in STEM Fields
• GS 721: Oral Communication
• GS730: EIS Academic Writing II
• GS 731: Academic Presentations
• GS732: EIS Advanced Academic Writing for PhD Students

Duke Center for Data and Visualization Sciences offers workshops and data-related resources as well as online learning opportunities , where you can click on a topic area and then on a title to get links to videos and other resources.

Duke Graduate Academy virtual mini-courses : Duke Graduate Academy virtual courses, which are open to graduate and professional students and postdocs, often focus on Science Communication and related topics, such as “Science and Research Communication” and “Public Speaking for Everyone.”

Duke Program on Medical Misinformation : Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute hosts a workshops series for clinical practitioners discussing how to engage in empathetic and meaningful conversations with patients about medical misinformation. These workshops are for anyone who has a professional role that includes caring for, guiding, or consulting with patients.

English for International Students 1-on-1 Consultations : Assistant Dean and Director of EIS Brad Teague offers individual appointments focusing on course presentations, conference talks, oral exams, and interviews. Students should come to each session with a specific speaking task as well as a list of aspects of language they wish to work on. Students may receive feedback on pronunciation, word choice, grammar, and presentation skills.

Duke Science & Society has produced a five-part series introducing the fundamentals of science communication.

• Why Communicate about Science?
• Who Is Your Audience?
• What Should We Say about Science?
• How Can We Reach Audiences?
• When Should We Communicate about Science?

Duke Science & Society students and faculty have also put together a series of blog posts about SciComm as well as a video archive of workshops on topics such as “It’s Not What You Say, it’s How You Say It: Communicating Health Information to Teens,” and “Science Sonnets: The Poetry of Good SciComm.”

Duke Presenting Clinical and Translational Science (PCATS ): Principles and Techniques for Developing and Delivering Effective Scientific Presentations in video modules.

Effective Academic Posters : A poster is a great way to share a short, coherent research story which viewers can take in within a few minutes. Poster sessions are the key way that new ideas are shared in many disciplines and are often great ways to get feedback on your work. From Trinity College’s Undergraduate Research Support

Pratt Graduate Communications and Intercultural Programs : Any Duke graduate student can take advantage of the video library of past events on communication and intercultural strategies.

The Duke Research Blog welcomes contributions from graduate student bloggers interested in building their science communication skills. You'll gain feedback and coaching from expert science writers and a published clip to show for your effort. Contact Robin A. Smith or Karl Bates to learn more and get involved.

Write for The Graduate School's professional development blog : Would you like to share your terrific science communication experiences with your fellow graduate students? Read past posts by student contributors Jameson Blount , Hannah Kania , and Jacqueline Nikpour . New contributors welcome!

Duke GRADx Talks : All Graduate School students are invited to present in the annual GRADx Talks, held during Duke's Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week. Students in the sciences as well as engineering, humanities, arts, and social sciences are invited to share a question that drives their research in a presentation accessible to a broad audience. Read about the value of participating in a blog post from Chris Bassil .

Duke UCEM Research Summit : Sloan Scholars and Affiliates in their second year are invited to share a research question that drives them in a presentation accessible to a STEM audience. The University Center of Exemplary Mentoring (UCEM) serves students in the physical sciences and engineering.

Workshops, Conferences, and Professional Associations

American Association for the Advancement of Science Mass Media Fellowships : This highly competitive program strengthens the connections between scientists and journalists by placing advanced undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate level scientists, engineers and mathematicians at media organizations nationwide.

ComSciCon-Triangle : The annual local ComSciCon meeting. Read about ComSciCon-Triangle on The Graduate School’s Professional Development Blog.

ComSciCon : ComSciCon is a series of workshops   focused on the communication of complex and technical concepts organized by graduate students, for graduate students. ComSciCon attendees meet and interact with professional communicators, build lasting networks with graduate students in all fields of science and engineering from across the US and Canada, and write and publish original works.

SciPep Conferences : SciPEP ( Sci ence  P ublic  E ngagement  P artnership) seeks to ensure scientists are supported to be effective communicators and, if appropriate, active in engaging the public.

Science Communicators of North Carolina : SCoNC is dedicated to connecting science communicators and cultivating a love of science across North Carolina.

National Association of Science Writers : The National Association of Science Writers is a community of journalists, authors, editors, producers, public information officers, students and people who write and produce material intended to inform the public about science, health, engineering, and technology.

Online Training Modules and Resources

The Open Notebook : features science writing master classes, online workshops, blog posts about the craft of science writing, and resources to connect scientists and journalists.

Science Communications Lab : The Science Communication Lab is an innovative non-profit that uses film and multimedia storytelling to capture the wonder, nuance, complexity, and processes of science.

SciLine : SciLine aims to link local reporters with scientists.

Science Rising Resources for Training : Science Rising is a nonpartisan movement fighting for science, justice, and equity in our democracy. SR offers training resources for Science Communication.

Engagement and Storytelling : A digital guide to telling an engaging story about your project from the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.

NC State Science Communication Resources and Self-Education Workshops : North Carolina State University's Leadership in Public Science program has compiled a list of readings and online training workshops for science communication.

Storytelling in Science Writing : University of Guelph’s online module on narrative art in science writing.

Three Minute Thesis : University of Queensland, Australia offers a video series on scholars presenting their complex research in simple, 3-minute videos.

Triangle Area Science Communication and Outreach Resources : A spreadsheet of local Triangle-area Science Communication resources collated by a UNC graduate student.

Are we missing anything?

Know of any more science communication resources relevant to Duke graduate students? Drop us an email to suggest a new resource. 

Home > College of Arts and Letters > Communication Studies > Communication Studies Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Communication Studies Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Theses/projects/dissertations from 2023 2023.

CEZZARTT: BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH THE ARTS , Cesar Aguiar

BLACK WOMEN PROFESSIONALS CHARGED WITH DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION WORK: USE SILENCING ^VOICE TO RESIST AND NAVIGATE EMBEDDED STRUCTURES OF WHITENESS IN HIERARCHICAL ACADEMIA , Malika Bratton

TRANSFORMING BLACK STUDENTS’ HIGHER EDUCATION EXPERIENCES AND LIVES: A PROPOSAL FOR THE CSU , Don Lundy

THE PATRIARCHY BECOMES THAT GIRL: TIKTOK AND THE MEDIATIZATION OF HEGEMONIC FEMININITY , Irene Molinar

“YO SÍ SOY BORICUA, PA’ QUE TÚ LO SEPAS”: A DECOLONIAL AND INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ , Jocelin Monge

Public Relations for Cryptocurrency: Coinbase Guidebook , Logan Odneal

CONNECTING STUDENTS WITH COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS FOR INFORMAL, SHORT-TERM EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES: A PORTAL PROPOSAL FOR CSUSB , Dia Poole

Anticolonial Feminism, Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, and the Female Gothic: A Textual Analysis of Mexican Gothic , Hana Vega

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2022 2022

"ADVANCING PRIDE": HOW NEW TURKISH HISTORICAL DRAMAS CHALLENGED WESTERN MEDIA'S STEREOTYPICAL IMAGES OF MUSLIMS , Naim Aburaddi

THE PANDEMIC IS NOT KILLING US, THE POLICE ARE KILLING US: HOW THE CHANGE IN THE SUBJECTIVE REALITY OF NIGERIAN CITIZENS BROUGHT ABOUT THE #ENDSARS PROTESTS , Olabode Adefemi Lawal

UNAPOLOGETICALLY HER: A NOMADIC-INTERSECTIONAL CASE STUDY ANALYSIS ON LIZZO AND JILLIAN MICHAELS , Alexia Berlynn Martinez

THE RAIN OVER HANOI: A PERSONAL PROJECT ABOUT SCREENPLAY STRUCTURE, STORY, REPRESENTATION AND INTERGENERATIONAL STRUGGLE , Joan Moua

BLACK FEMALE ATHLETES’ USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ACTIVISM: AN INTERSECTIONAL AND CYBERFEMINIST ANALYSIS OF U.S. HAMMER-THROWER, GWEN BERRY'S 2019 AND 2021 PODIUM PROTESTS , Ariel Newell

GIRL POWER?: 2017’S WONDER WOMAN AS A FEMINIST TEXT AND ICON IN AN ERA OF POST-FEMINIST MEDIA , Rachel Richardson

OVERCOMING SELF-OBJECTIFICATION THROUGH A MIND BODY AWARENESS PROGRAM , Alexandra Winner-Bachus

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2021 2021

THE LOUDEST VOICE IN THE ROOM IS OUR SILENCE: NARRATIVE POSSIBILITIES OF SILENCED ADULTS , Rebeccah Avila

How Couples YouTube Channels Forge "Friendships" With Their Viewers: A Thematic Textual Analysis , Marisol Botello

THE CURIOUS CASES OF CANCEL CULTURE , Loydie Solange Burmah

“DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?”: INFLUENCE OF EMBODIMENT AND IMMERSION ON CHARACTER IDENTIFICATION IN VIRTUAL REALITY ENVIRONMENTS , Shane Burrell

INTO THE COLLEGE CLASSROOM, ANOTHER TOUR OF DUTY: A GUIDE FOR INSTRUCTORS OF VETERAN STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION , Steven deWalden

DECOLONIAL LESSONS FROM HISTORICAL AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY LEADERS: RECONSTRUCTING AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY AS RESISTANCE IN PRAXIS , Rhejean King-Johnson

WELCOMING FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN TO CSUSB: MAKING AN INTERGENERATIONAL DIFFERENCE , Leslie Leach

INCLUSIVITY IN PRACTICE: A QUEER EXAMINATION OF THE ACCEPTANCE OF TRANS COMMUNITIES FROM THE STANDPOINTS OF TRANS UNIVERSITY STUDENTS , Sean Maulding

ENHANCING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDENTS AND TEACHERS IN A SOCIALLY DISTANCED WORLD BY HUMANIZING ONLINE EDUCATION: A GUIDE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION INSTRUCTORS , Gilma Linette Ramirez Reyes

COMMUNICATION APPREHENSION: A PRESSING MATTER FOR STUDENTS, A PROJECT ADDRESSING UNIQUE NEEDS USING COMMUNICATION IN THE DISCIPLINE WORKSHOPS , Brenda L. Rombalski

When the Victim Becomes the Accused: A Critical Analysis of Silence and Power in the Sexual Harassment Case of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh , Erendira Torres

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS TRAINING MANUAL: FOR FACULTY TO HELP STUDENTS , Ricardo Vega

THE IMPACT OF RACIST COMMUNICATION PRACTICES (RCP) ON A FORMERLY INCARCERATED STUDENT BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER PRISON , George Zaragoza

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2020 2020

REPORTING ON SUICIDE: A THEMATIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON DISCOURSES REGARDING SUICIDE IN 2010S HIP-HOP SONGS , Andy Allen Acosta Jr.

COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE TRAINING WITHIN MINORITY-OWNED SMALL BUSINESSES , Shirleena Racine Baggett

“REAL ME VERSUS SOCIAL MEDIA ME:” FILTERS, SNAPCHAT DYSMORPHIA, AND BEAUTY PERCEPTIONS AMONG YOUNG WOMEN , Janella Eshiet

DESDE LA PERIFERIA DE LA MILPA: TESTIMONIOS DE MSM DE LOS RANCHOS Y LOS PUEBLOS DE SOUTHERN MEXICO (FROM THE PERIPHERY OF THE CORNFIELD: TESTIMONIES OF MSM FROM THE RANCHES AND TOWNS OF SOUTHERN MEXICO) , Luis Esparza

WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION: EXAMINING LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE THEORY, UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE, AND SOCIAL STYLES , Guy Robinson

Passing vs Non-Passing: Latina/o/x Experiences and Understandings of Being Presumed White , Francisco Rodriguez

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Fully Immersed, Fully Present: Examining the User Experience Through the Multimodal Presence Scale and Virtual Reality Gaming Variables , Andre Adame

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY: COMMUNICATIVE DISSOCIATION BETWEEN BLACK AMERICANS AND AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS , Melody Adejare

TAKING A KNEE: AN INTERPRETIVE STUDY ON PRINT NEWS COVERAGE OF THE COLIN KAEPERNICK PROTESTS , Kriston Costello

TO BE OR NOT TO BE: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF INTERCULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN MEXICAN AMERICAN AND CAUCASIAN AMERICAN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS , Jessica Helen Vierra

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2018 2018

"I JUST GOT OUT; I NEED A PLACE TO LIVE": A BUSINESS PLAN FOR TRANSITIONAL HOUSING , Walker Beverly V

Performing Stereotypical Tropes on Social Media Sites: How Popular Latina Performers Reinscribe Heteropatriarchy on Instagram , Ariana Arely Cano

NEGOTIATING STRATEGIES: AN EFFECTIVE WAY FOR PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES TO COMMUNICATE FOR SERVICES , Dorothea Cartwright

A COMMUNICATION GUIDE FOR EX-OFFENDERS , Richard Anthony Contreras

AUTHENTICALLY DISNEY, DISTINCTLY CHINESE: A CASE STUDY OF GLOCALIZATION THROUGH SHANGHAI DISNEYLAND’S BRAND NARRATIVE , Chelsea Michelle Galvez

“I AM NOT A PRINCESS BUT…”: AN IDEOLOGICAL CRITICISM OF “FEMINIST” IDEOLOGIES IN DISNEY’S MOANA , Victoria Luckner

MEETING “THE ONE” AT MIDNIGHT IS YOUR DESTINY: THE ROLE OF YUAN IN USE OF THE TAIWANESE SOCIAL NETWORK, DCARD , Wen-Yueh Shu

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2017 2017

HANDBOOK ON TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIPS , Michael Anthony Arteaga

TRAGIC MULATTA 2.0: A POSTCOLONIAL APPROXIMATION AND CRITIQUE OF THE REPRESENTATIONS OF BI-ETHNIC WOMEN IN U.S. FILM AND TV , Hadia Nouria Bendelhoum

MEETING THE DISTANCE EDUCATION CHALLENGE: A GUIDE FOR DESIGNING ONLINE CLASSROOMS , Patrick Allen Bungard

MASTERING THE TASK AND TENDING TO THE SELF: A GUIDE FOR THE GRADUATE TEACHING ASSOCIATE , Angelina Nicole Burkhart

The Construction of Candidate’s Political Image on Social Media: A Thematic Analysis of Facebook Comments in the 2014 Presidential Election in Indonesia , Siti A. Rachim Marpaung Malik

BACKPEDALING NUGGET SMUGGLERS: A FACEBOOK AND NEWS ARTICLE THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF CHICK-FIL-A VS. GAY MARRIAGE , Stacy M. Wiedmaier

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Value Driven: An Analysis of Attitudes and Values Via BET Programming Past and Present , Sasha M. Rice

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2014 2014

CELEBRITIES, DRINKS, AND DRUGS: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF CELEBRITY SUBSTANCE ABUSE AS PORTRAYED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES , Brent John Austin

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION, KEEP IN TOUCH, AS A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF VISITATION , Shalom Z. LaPoint and Shalom Z. LaPoint

Selling Disbelief , Gregory S. McKinley-Powell

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Media and corporate blame: Gate keeping and framing of the British Petroleum oil spill of 2010 , Kudratdeep Kaur Dhaliwal

Sperm stealers & post gay politics: Lesbian-parented families in film and television , Elena Rose Martinez

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Like us on Facebook: A social media campaign's effect on relationship management outcomes for a non-profit organization , Natalia Isabel López-Thismón

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

This is not a love story: A semiotic discourse analysis of romantic comedies , Stephanie Lynn Gomez

Blackness as a weapon: A critical discourse analysis of the 2009 Henry Louis Gates arrest in national mainstream media , Ashley Ann Jones

Fabulistic: Examination and application of narratology and screenplay craft , Nicholas DeVan Snead

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

The effect of cold calling and culture on communication apprehension , Kimberly Noreen Aguilar

The artistry of teaching: Commedia Dell'arte's improvisational strategies and its implications for classroom participation , Jean Artemis Vezzalini

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

Internet marketing strategy and the cognitive response approach: Achieving online fundraising success with targeted donor outreach , Carrie Dawn Cornwall

Theses/Dissertations from 2008 2008

The design of an intercultural communication skills training for multicultural Catholic parishes in the Diocese of San Bernardino , Marco Aurelio De Tolosa Raposo

Religious social support groups: Strengthening leadership with communication competence , JoAnne Irene Flynn

Parametric media: A strategic market analysis and marketing plan for a digital signage, interactive kiosk and content company , Helena Irita Fowler

Factors affecting cognitive dissonance among automobile magazine subscribers , Petroulla Giasoumi

Web templates: Unifying the Web presence of California State University San Bernardino , Angela Marie Gillespie

United States media portrayals of the developing world: A semiotic analysis of the One campaign's internet web site , Lindsey Marie Haussamen

The Use of Violence as Feminist Rhetoric: Third-Wave Feminism in Tarantino's Kill Bill Films , Leah Andrea Katona

Superior-subordinate relationships found in Scrubs: A discourse analysis , Nicolle Elizabeth Quick

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

A cultural studies analysis of the Christian women vocalists movement from the 1980's to 2000: Influences, stars and lyrical meaning making , Mary Elizabeth Akers

The application of marketing and communication theories on community festival event planning , Khara Louise Dizmon

The mad rhetoric: Toward a rigor on radical creativity and its function in consciousness as a communicative principle , Eugene David Hetzel

Millennial pre-camp staff training: Incorporating generational knowledge, learning strategies and compliance gaining techniques , Dana Robin Magilen

Images and lyrics: Representations of African American women in blues lyrics written by black women , Danette Marie Pugh-Patton

Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006

Views from the center: Middle-class white men and perspectives on social privilege , Sandra Jane Cross

Rendering whiteness visible in the Filipino culture through skin-whitening cosmetic advertisements , Beverly Romero Natividad

Bias in the network nightly news coverage of the 2004 presidential election , Stephen Arthur Shelton

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

A proposed resource development plan for the Department of Communication Studies, California State University San Bernardino , Donna Louise Cooley

From 9/11 to Iraq: Analysis and critique of the rhetoric of the Bush Administration leading to the war in Iraq , LaKesha Nicole Covington

A queer look at feminist science fiction: Examing Sally Miller Gearhart's The Kanshou , Jennifer Jodelle Floerke

Proposed marketing and advertising campaign for the United Negro College Fund , Rashida Patrice Hamm

The online marketing plan for Indra Jewelry Company, Thailand , Vorapoj Liyawarakhun

A metaphoric cluster analysis of the rhetoric of digital technology , Michael Eugene Marse and Nicholas Negroponte

Talking about drugs: Examining self-disclosure and trust in adult children from substance abusive families , Susan Renee Mattson

The public relations campaign for Bangkok fashion week, Thailand , Chanoknart Paitoonmongkon

A web design shop for local business owners , Mary Colleen Rice

International students' reliance on home-country related internet use , Songkwun Sukontapatipak

Theses/Dissertations from 2004 2004

Zapatistas: The shifting rhetoric of a modern revolution , Ofelia Morales Bejar

Globalization, values, and consumer trends: A French and USA comparison , Alexandre Hatlestad-Shey

Values and symbols: An intercultural analysis of web pages on the Internet , Aura Constanza Mosquera

Creating community through communication: The case of East Desert Unified School District , Michelle Elizabeth Shader

A comparison of women's roles as portrayed in Taiwanese and Chinese magazine print advertising , Yi-Chen Yang

Theses/Dissertations from 2003 2003

The concept of interest in the Western and Middle Eastern society , Mustapha Ben Amira

A comprehensive examination of the precode horror comic books of the 1950's , Gene Marshall Broxson

Narrative versus traditional journalism: Appeal, believability, understanding, retention , John David Emig

Relationships of cultural orientations to online public relations message preferences among United States and South Korean college students , Seongjung Jeong

Self-esteem, television viewing behavior, and parasocial interaction with a favorite television personality , Sarah Beth Neighbor

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178 Communication Research Topics For Your Paper

Imagine what the world would be without communication! How would we get along? I guess there would be no sense in existing after all. That is just a tiny snippet of how important communication is in everyday life. Exchanging information is a key component of coexistence as it creates order and a sense of satisfaction in the end.

However, communication as a discipline cuts across all other niches in the academic world. Students from an Engineering course would also take up communication as a unit of study. Students delve into the transmission, representation, reception, and decoding of information communicated to a greater extent.

Situations When You May Need To Write A Communication Paper

Various scenarios call for a communication paper either as an assignment or a research project in college. The communication papers needed for every situation vary in format and outline. Here are some of the cases when communication papers are necessary:

When writing a resume or cover letter In presentations and reports Internal or external communication in a company Writing a thesis statement

When writing communication papers in these different scenarios, students can develop the following aspects:

Understand the various communication phenomena Ability to direct communication messages towards accomplishing individual and organizational goals Understand various types of communication such as rhetoric, interpersonal or organizational

Such an assignment is peculiar because it deals with students’ communication processes. Therefore, the student can easily relate a communication assignment to the real-world environment.

You will have to conduct extensive digging before writing your paper like any other research project. In writing a communication research paper, you will benefit from the importance of communication in general, such as building better relationships and finding the right solutions to various problems.

It takes a lot of time to create a high-quality writing, so you have all the right to ask dissertation writers for hire to help.

Guidelines On Structure And Step By Step Tips On Writing

To have an award-winning communication paper, you need to understand that structure is always at the heart of it all. A great communication paper follows the structure below:

Solid intro : Begin by presenting a captivating introduction by highlighting the facts, questions, or problems that you will explore in the body. The reader should find more than a million reasons to proceed with your essay by reading the first two lines. A strong thesis statement is also necessary for the introduction. An insightful literature review : It shows the theoretical basis of your research project, thus giving it validity. An in-depth literature review will give room for exploration and further research. Main body : This is where we expect to find all your findings, methodological steps, concepts, analyses, and the outcome. Discussion and conclusion : Depending on your professor’s instructions, you can divide this into two parts or put it as one. In either case, this section will consist of the strengths and weaknesses of your research and any future development or improvements. You could also compare the results found in your research with what other authors have discovered.

Provided you have all your facts at hand, a communication research paper will be the easiest you will ever handle in college. Nonetheless, you can order a custom paper from various online writing experts.

If you want to make an impression with your communication research paper, here are some tips to consider:

Select a thought-provoking and captivating research topic Have a working outline with all the arguments and examples/evidence in place Ensure that you exhaust reading all the possible research materials on your topic Such papers are always in the first person except in unique cases

You can review some of the samples on our essay writer to familiarize yourself with the structure and outline of a communication research paper.

Let’s now explore 178 of the hottest communication research topics to ace your project:

Top Interpersonal Communication Research Topics

• Evaluate the different relational patterns of interaction theory
• How to achieve coordinated management of meaning
• Discuss the fundamentals of pedagogical communication
• How does technology relate to interpersonal communication?
• Key constructs of openness and closeness
• Establishing identities in the identity management theory
• Evaluate the contribution of interpersonal communication scholars
• How mental representations influence how people interpret information
• Conceptualizing the process of social interaction
• Discuss the various behavioral interaction patterns among siblings
• Why do individuals modify their communicative behavior?
• Describe why new environments present a challenge for most people to communicate effectively
• The role of eye contact and gestures in interpersonal communication
• Varying effects of nonverbal and verbal acts of interpersonal communication
• Effects of different cultures on interpersonal communication strategies

World-Class Communication Research Topics For College Students

• Understanding the historical research methods in communication
• Discuss the relationship between technology, media, and culture
• Evaluate the various revolutions in human communication
• Discuss the developments made in the invention of human speech and language
• The role of image-making, cinema, and media entertainment in communication
• How to overcome communication barriers among students
• Steps in encouraging participation in meetings
• How employees contribute to the information flow in organizations
• How to evaluate a report based on its findings
• Sources of error during nonverbal communication
• How the media can match the channels of communication to their audience
• Ensuring audience attention during a presentation
• The impact of graphics in communication strategies
• How to interpret non-verbal signals
• Developing communication methods that match a given purpose

Possible Topics For Communication Research

• How to develop realistic communication strategies
• Discuss the economics of finance in communication processes
• How exposure to radio and TV impacts communication
• How to manage controversial issues in communication
• Why speaking with confidence is still difficult for many people
• The effectiveness of communicating with words and body language
• Why defining your purpose is key in any communication process
• Why explanatory communication is more difficult than informative communication
• The place of communication in long-distance relationships
• Communication strategies that influence people
• How to use communication effectively for conflict resolution
• Developing your self-esteem for effective communication
• Effects of redundancy in communication processes
• The place of responsibility in developing communication messages
• How to acquire effective communication skills in college

Latest Communication Topic For Research

• The role of persuasive dialogue in negotiations
• Why everyone must learn proper expression strategies
• Effects of emoji and other characters in enhancing textual conversations
• The role of propaganda in shaping communication tones
• Evaluate the unique political language used in America versus Africa
• The continuing impact of the internet on interpersonal communication
• How images are enhancing communication
• Discuss the effects of gender victimization on communication
• Evaluate the development of modern digital communication
• How to effectively communicate during a war or crisis
• How hacking is transforming communication of encrypted messages
• Effects of stereotyping in developing communication messages
• Is virtual reality ruining effective communication?
• Evaluate language as a barrier in communicating messages
• The role of empathy in communicating to victims of a disaster

Top-Notch Communication Research Paper Topics

• The role of diplomacy in fostering better relations among countries
• Why aided communication may not achieve the intended purpose
• Effects of using a translator in the communication of critical messages
• Evaluate the development of audio-visual devices for communication
• The dangers of failing to notice barriers to communication
• How stigma and prejudice impact effective communication
• Discuss the impact of having a common language in a country
• How social classes affect communication messages
• Factors that hinder communication between fighting political sides
• How to develop strong communication skills in a marketplace
• Why opinions may prevent one from seeing the true picture
• Discuss the role of fantasy and exaggeration in communication
• Differences between oral and verbal messages in conveying information
• The role of attitude and mood in enhancing effective message delivery
• How the media sets the communication pattern of a given society

Highly Rated Mass Communication Research Topics

• Discuss the essence of social media among PR practitioners
• The role of mass media in rebranding a nation
• Challenges to media freedom and their impact on proper communication
• Discuss the effects of news commercialization and their credibility
• How TV advertisements impact children and their development
• Compare and contrast between animation and real-people adverts in mass media
• How the internet affects professionalization in news media
• How mass media messages contribute to the development of religion in Africa
• Evaluate the radio listenership patterns between men and women
• How does mass media contribute to an emerging democracy
• Discuss how the media enlightens the public on issues of concern
• The role of mass media in communicating development messages
• Why mass media is critical before, during, and after elections
• Assess the influence of community radio in remote areas
• How mass media contributes to national integration

Good Communication Research Topics

• What determines consumer preference patterns in the 21 st century?
• Effective communication strategies for creating awareness against drug abuse
• Prospects and challenges of local dialects in communication
• Evaluate the influence of television on public opinion
• Discuss the growing cyberactivism in the digital age
• How social media is contributing to misleading information
• Challenges facing teachers when communicating to pre-school students
• Discuss the impact of information overload on the credibility of information
• Evaluate communication patterns among the youth in the US
• Assess the effects of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on communication patterns
• How public perception influences communication strategies
• Explain how mothers learn to communicate with and understand their babies at such a tender age
• The role of music in shaping communication models
• How to overcome the challenge of top-down communication in companies
• Management of information on online media for effective use

Business Communication Research Paper Topics

• Discuss the increasing role of influencers on brand marketing
• Why company blogs are essential in attracting new clients
• Evaluate the differences between face to face and virtual business meetings
• The growing popularity of social media in business marketing
• Why every company should have a partner relations department
• Dealing with complaints in a relaxed and useful manner
• Why online project management is the future of business
• Discuss why it is necessary to have company retreats
• Explore the role of digital document sharing in speeding up business communication
• Effects of relying on online communication at the expense of physical meetings
• The role of effective business management in the performance of an organization
• How staff motivation improve the overall working environment
• Discuss the place of corporate social responsibility in a company
• Effective ways of handling crisis in a large company
• Explain why trust is important in any business partnerships

Intercultural Communication Research Topics

• Discuss how Muslims interact with Christians at a social level
• Evaluate the reception of instructions from a man to a woman
• How Americans interact with Africans at the basic level
• Discuss how an American Democrat would associate with a Chinese politician
• Discuss the impact of marginalization in developing communication messages
• How migration and immigration affect communication patterns
• Effects of social stereotyping in communication
• How do Western communication models differ from those of Africa?
• Impact of discriminatory communication messages
• How to organize an effective intergroup come-together
• How the media represents various groups in its communication
• Effects of the growing intercultural norms
• The role of language attitudes in inhibiting effective communication
• Evaluate how ethnographic perspectives affect communication messages
• Why it is difficult to solve intercultural conflicts

Additional Interpersonal Communication Topics For Research Paper

• The role of interpersonal communication in team member satisfaction
• How collaboration and teamwork enhances business success
• Discuss how interpersonal communication enhances problem-solving skills
• The role of trust in interpersonal communication
• Effects of confusion, negativity, and conflicts on interpersonal communication
• How to deal with workplace miscommunication effectively
• The role of personalizing information
• How to improve internal communication channels in a company
• Discuss the role of interests in communication patterns
• Challenges when implementing modern communication solutions
• Evaluate how jargon and inattention make internal communication difficult
• The role of feedback in interpreting messages correctly
• Discuss the influence of environmental factors in communication
• Why miscommunication may result in a disconnect among a group of people
• Discuss the role of skills and knowledge in effective communication among leaders

Interesting Communication Research Topics

• How can effective interpersonal communication be a catalyst for action
• Why a focused and intentional approach is necessary for effective communication
• Discuss why online dating is not successful in most cases
• Evaluate the role of non-verbal communication and customer satisfaction
• Why is it important to have a list of communication networks?
• Effects of lack of personal contact when it comes to communication
• Discuss the various forms of human interactions and their influence on communication
• The role of clear communication during an organizational change process
• Why online communication is not as effective as physical meetings
• Evaluate the roles and issues involved in a nurse-patient communication
• The role of TV shows in determining how people relate to each other in the society
• Effects of the digital divide in communication paradigms
• The relationship between quality leadership and effective communication
• Why is email still not yet an effective communication medium?
• Effects of integrating marketing communication

General Communication Studies Research Topics

• Discuss the differences in body language between male and female
• The role of communication in familiarizing with someone
• How online gaming communication affects one’s interpersonal communication
• Why a leader without proper communication skills may not succeed
• The role of communication in achieving an organization’s vision
• How mobile phone conversations are turning around interpersonal communication
• Discuss the role of different personality types in communication
• Is there a difference between language and communication?
• Discuss how communication in the military is different from that in a normal setting
• Compare and contrast between written and spoken forms of communication
• Why family communication is critical for a peaceful coexistence
• Shortcomings to understanding foreign languages
• Discuss the effectiveness of web-based communication

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