Collaborative Research: Scientists' Views of the Public, Public Engagement Practice, and Public Engagement Goals

合作研究：科学家对公众的看法、公众参与实践和公众参与目标

• 批准号: 1421214
• 负责人: John Besley
• 金额: $ 24.52万
• 依托单位: Michigan State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-10-01 至 2017-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1421214&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Scientists; Views; Public

This Michigan State University and University of Texas-Austin project will focus on making science communication more scientific. It will primarily use interview and survey research to improve societal understanding of how those involved in science communication, particularly scientists, think about science communication. The goal is to use this knowledge to help improve science communication training and recruiting with a focus on increasing the likelihood that scientists will adopt evidence-based communication strategies to increase public interest, engagement, and identification with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). A central underlying reason for the study is a mismatch between scientists' motivations and goals when interacting with public audiences and what research suggests would be the most positive and productive with public audiences. This study is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.The project will be conducted in three phases. The first is interviews with a wide range of science communication experts to assess priority research questions. These interviews will be followed by surveys with U.S.-based members of up to 10 different scientific societies representing a broad range of academic fields as well as a survey of science communication researchers. The survey will focus on three different public engagement modes, including face-to-face engagement, online engagement, and engagement via the news media. Consistent with the Theory of Planned Behavior, the surveys will assess scientists' attitudes about public engagement and specific public engagement goals, as well as perceptions of social norms (both descriptive and injunctive) and efficacy beliefs (both internal and external). These will be used as predictors of general and goal-specific engagement willingness, as well as reported past behavior, using multigroup modeling. Potential communication goals of interest include transferring knowledge, developing interest and excitement, building trust in scientists, demonstrating openness and a willingness to listen, shaping how people think about subjects (i.e. framing), and/or defending science. The final phase of the project will explore the potential to design experiments aimed at testing the impact that mention of specific goals has on communication training recruitment as well as the degree to which online content about various goals is attractive to scientists interested in developing their communication skills. The research is the most targeted and largest attempt to date to understand how scientists' views about the public and communication processes may shape science communication behavior.

这个密歇根州立大学和德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的项目将专注于使科学传播更加科学。它将主要使用访谈和调查研究来提高社会对那些参与科学传播的人，特别是科学家如何看待科学传播的理解。目标是利用这些知识来帮助改善科学传播培训和招聘，重点是提高科学家采用循证传播策略的可能性，以提高公众对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）的兴趣、参与和认同。这项研究的一个核心潜在原因是，科学家与公众受众互动时的动机和目标与研究表明的与公众受众互动最积极、最有效的方式不匹配。本研究由推进非正式STEM学习计划资助，该计划旨在推进非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括提供多种途径，扩大STEM学习经验的获取和参与，推进非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及发展参与者对深度学习的理解。该项目将分三个阶段进行。首先是与广泛的科学传播专家进行访谈，以评估优先研究问题。在这些访谈之后，将对代表广泛学术领域的多达10个不同科学学会的美国成员进行调查，并对科学传播研究人员进行调查。该调查将重点关注三种不同的公众参与模式，包括面对面参与、在线参与和通过新闻媒体参与。与计划行为理论相一致，调查将评估科学家对公众参与和具体公众参与目标的态度，以及对社会规范（描述性和强制性）和功效信念（内部和外部）的看法。使用多组模型，这些将被用作一般和特定目标参与意愿的预测因素，以及报告的过去行为。潜在的交流目标包括转移知识，培养兴趣和兴奋，建立对科学家的信任，表现出开放和倾听的意愿，塑造人们对主题的看法（即框架），和/或捍卫科学。该项目的最后阶段将探索设计实验的潜力，旨在测试提到具体目标对沟通培训招聘的影响，以及关于各种目标的在线内容对有兴趣发展沟通技巧的科学家的吸引力程度。这项研究是迄今为止最具针对性和最大规模的尝试，旨在了解科学家对公众和传播过程的看法如何影响科学传播行为。