EAGER: Development of a Research Tool to Investigate Factors that Influence Researchers' Attitudes about Engagement in Public Science Events

科学队伍的扩大和多样化，以及公众对科学越来越多的信任和支持，对于确保美国继续成为全球科学领先者至关重要。要实现这些目标，可以通过开展既揭开研究过程的神秘面纱，又在从业人员和公众之间建立对话的活动，鼓励科学家与公众直接互动。该项目的重点是确定影响研究人员参与公共科学活动的积极和消极因素，并将开发一种研究工具，以了解科学家与公众接触的情况。该研究工具将被广泛应用于威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的研究人员作为测试人群，以探索研究人员通过科学与公众接触(或不通过科学)的关键动机是什么。反过来，这些简介将为量身定做的干预措施提供信息，如科学传播培训、接触不同的受众和建设性反馈，以支持研究人员参与公共事务。这些干预措施可能会增加更多样化的研究人员与公众持续参与科学活动的可能性。这个迫切的项目的具体目标是：1)为研究人员开发一个经过验证的公共参与度量表，2)为所有威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的研究人员建立公共参与度基线，无论他们过去是否参与过与科学的公共参与，3)调查所有参与公共参与科学的威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的研究人员，以确定影响研究人员概况的因素，以及4)确定紧急公共参与度概况，以支持确定影响研究人员的关键因素？对研究人员个人资料或他们所参与的事件中的特征进行多元分析，可以揭示预测研究人员参与的因素，从而提供扩大和增加研究人员参与公共科学参与的策略。这种策略将改变公众参与科学的设计，从基于直觉和个人经验的过程，转变为基于系统地吸引和维持研究人员参与公众参与科学的因素的数据。此外，这项研究将提供有效设计集体影响计划的建议，以吸引研究人员和公众。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Expansion and diversification of the scientific workforce, along with increasing public trust and support of science, are critical to ensure that the United States continues to be a global leader in science. Achieving these goals can be addressed by encouraging scientists to interact directly with the public through activities that both demystify the process of research and create dialog between practitioners and the public. This project focuses on identifying positive and negative factors influencing researchers' participation in public science events and will develop a research tool to understand profiles of scientists' engagement with the public. The research tool will be applied widely to University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers as a test population to explore what factors are key motivations for why researchers do (or do not) engage with the public through science. These profiles, in turn, will inform tailored interventions such as science communication training, exposure to different audiences and constructive feedback that support researchers in public engagement. These interventions may increase the likelihood that a more diverse pool of researchers participate in sustained science engagement with the public. The specific aims of this EAGER project are to: 1) develop a validated scale for a public engagement profile for researchers, 2) establish a public engagement profile baseline for all UW-Madison campus researchers, regardless of past participation in public engagement with science, 3) survey all UW-Madison researchers following participation in public engagement with science to identify factors shaping researchers' profiles, and 4) identify emergent public engagement profiles to support identification of key factors influencing researchers? initial and sustained participation in public engagement with science.A multivariate analysis of features either in researchers' profiles or in the events in which they participate may reveal factors that predict researcher engagement, thereby informing tactics to broaden and increase researcher participation in public engagement with science. Such tactics would transform the design of public engagement in science from a process based on intuition and personal experience to one based on data on factors that systematically attract and sustain researchers' participation in public engagement with science. Additionally, this research will offer recommendations for the effective design of collective impact programs that engage researchers and the public.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.