Promoting Science Understanding and Interest through Language Science

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Public understanding of science in the United States is notably low, and even lower among women and individuals in minority groups. Through most of an individual's life, access to science material will happen outside of a school setting, making informal science environments such as science museums an important resource for creating and maintaining interest and access to science throughout the lifespan. The goal of this research project is to examine how Language Science can promote better understanding of science as a process and can spark interest and excitement for science in a museum setting. Language Science is predicted to be especially effective because of its natural fit with evidence-based practices of informal science teaching and learning. Moreover, we predict that it will help create an entry point for science among individuals who do not identify with classic scientific fields. This project will help us better understand how different kinds of activities and topic areas influence the public's understanding of and attitudes towards science, and it will potentially help us identify a bridge to bring more people into the scientific community.The goal of this project is to examine how effective a variety of different Language Science outreach activities (including participation in live research) are at fostering (1) understanding of scientific content, (2) understanding of the nature of science (e.g. science as a process), and (3) interest and excitement to learn more about science. Observational and survey-based studies will be conducted at the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus, Ohio. The Language Science activities will be drawn from the set of those currently in use at the Language Sciences Research Lab at the museum and include a range of language topics and types of interactivity with the public. Responses to these activities will be compared to a broad base-line survey of museum visitors, as well as parallel observational and survey-based studies examining non-language science activities at the museum. Survey items will include a range of demographic questions and questions about scientific knowledge, training, and interest. These studies will allow us to determine which approaches and topics are most effective at promoting positive science understanding and interest, and especially the extent to which Language Science is comparable to other scientific domains. Of particular interest will be the responses of individuals with lower levels of science background and interest. We predict comparatively greater gains with the Language Science activities relative to the non-language activities for such individuals. In addition, the project will include a set of focus group discussions with the faculty and students who conduct the Language Science activities to explore factors that encourage participation in such activities and would promote sustainability.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.