Developing Effective Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering

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Developing Effective Messages for ImprovingPublic Understanding of EngineeringThis proposal is being submitted to the Division of Engineering Education & Centers within the NSF Directorate for Engineering. The goal of the project, to be carried out by the National Academy of Engineering, is to encourage coordinated, consistent, and effective communication by the engineering community about the role, importance, and career potential of engineering to a variety of audiences, including school children, their parents, teachers, and counselors; policy makers at the local, state, and federal level; and the public at large.Intellectual MeritEfforts to promote greater public understanding of engineering (PUE) in the United States consume hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Despite these expenditures, the impact of engineering on our daily lives, the nature of what engineers do, and the opportunities made available through an engineering education remain largely unrecognized by most Americans. Polling and other research over the past decade has consistently shown that adults and children have a limited understanding of what engineers do, perceive engineering to be a boring or "nerdy" profession, and view engineering as having less prestige than other professions, such as medicine, science, and teaching. Poor understanding of engineering has potentially serious consequences related to attracting young Americans-particularly women and under-represented minorities-into engineering-related careers and supporting the nation's ability to maintain its capacity for technological innovation. As documented in the 2002 report, Raising Public Awareness of Engineering (National Academies Press), one important cause of the current situation is the failure of the engineering community to use consistent and empirically derived messages for communicating with the variety of audiences it attempts to reach.This project has the following objectives:1. Identify a small number of messages that appear likely to encourage greater public understanding of engineering,2. Test the effectiveness of these messages in different audiences, and3. Disseminate the results of the message testing to the engineering community.In meeting the objectives, the project will convene a group of advertising professionals to help identify a set of potentially effective PUE messages; conduct eight separate focus group discussions with audiences of interest (such as middle and high school students, their parents, teachers, and guidance counselors; and business and community leaders) to refine the messages; and determine the relative effectiveness of the refined messages by conducting a survey of a large group of randomly selected Americans. A steering committee comprised of experts in fields relevant to the topic and appointed by the NAE President will oversee the project.Broader ImpactsThe primary product of the project will be a steering committee report, which will describe the purpose and method of the study, include a summary of the research findings, and present the committee's findings and recommendations. The report will be distributed to some 600 organizations identified in a 2002 NAE PUE survey project as well as to other individuals and groups that request it. In addition, members of the steering committee will present the report at selected professional meetings. By identifying a set of empirically tested PUE messages, the project will provide a common foundation upon which the engineering community can build effective communications strategies, ultimately leading to gains in public understanding of engineering.1 In this proposal, the engineering community includes professional engineering societies, industry and industry associations, design and contracting firms, many colleges and universities, education associations, national R&D laboratories, a number of federal agencies, certain media sectors, and many museums.