Leigh Anne TIFFANY, Michigan State University, United States
John BESLEY, Michigan State University, United States
The dominant method for analyzing the success of science public engagement activities—namely presentations by scientists for a lay audience—is through questionnaires. However, questionnaires are time-consuming, expensive, and logistically challenging, especially with large-scale events. If the presenter (i.e., the scientist) was able to predict how successful they are at presenting, then there would be less need for these questionnaires. This proposed presentation aims to address the question of whether or not scientists can predict how their own presentations are perceived by their audiences.
To answer this question, questionnaires were given to audiences at 31 science presentations (e.g., science cafes, science happy hours, museum after hours, etc.) at 26 science festival-related events across the United States. Questions included how competent, sincere, caring, and open-minded the scientist presenter appeared, how much the audience felt they learned, and the overall impression of the scientist presenter. A near-identical questionnaire was given to the presenting scientist at each event, but instead asked the scientist to rate how they believe they did (e.g., how competent and open-minded they appeared) and their perceptions of the audience (e.g., how much did the audience learn).
Multilevel modeling was used to compare survey findings both within individual events (scientist presenter vs. audience at an event) and across events with varying sample sizes. Across almost all questions, scientist presenters’ ratings were not statistically related to audience ratings. In other words, on average, scientist presenters were not able to predict how the audience perceived their presentation. This result could be interpreted to mean that asking for self-ratings from science event presenters provides limited evidence of event successfulness. It could also indicate that science presenters need to do more to ensure they understand how they are being perceived. Limitations to the current study include the limited number of events, as well as the relatively high ratings given to most events.