Scientists need professional development to practice meaningful public engagement

ABSTRACT

Public engagement with science is emerging in research and practice, but most research focuses on perspectives of and/or outcomes for public communities, not scientists. However, multi-way communication and mutual learning among community members and scientists are key features defining public engagement of science. In this perspectives article, focused on three studies of scientists' experiences, we identified areas needing improvement to achieve meaningful community engagement. In the first study, university researchers' self-reflections show mismatches in power dynamics with their participants, potentially limiting the mutuality of the exchange. In a second study, we found even herpetologists with extensive engagement experience rarely considered evaluating their activities. Finally, scientists who have gone through professional development in communication and/ or education may still have mismatches between their professed understanding of true engagement and their actions during engagement. We conclude with recommendations for scientist professional development to move toward truly inclusive (in all senses) science engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Public engagement with science
• scientist professional development
• power dynamics
• community engagement
• inclusive science engagement
• inclusive science communication

Scientists in the US increasingly seek to work directly with audiences outside of their academic peers to share and build knowledge. Support and encouragement and thus scientists’ motivations for such efforts can derive from internal motivations as well as external groups and institutions ranging from professional societies to universities to government and to the communities themselves. Still, we argue that resources to help scientists effectively share their work for democratic knowledge production and innovation diffusion tend to lag such voiced support (Baram-Tsabari and Lewenstein 2017; Macnaghten and Guivant 2020). From our perspective in a US land grant university with explicit Extension expectations for faculty to translate science-based research into action for state residents (National Institute of Food and Agriculture, n.d.), faculty still often stumble into engagement without partnering with experienced practitioners (Stofer and Wolfe 2018). Sustainable resources, those available across time, space, and all stages of learning, including explicit funding and recognition in evaluations for engagement, help scientists practice meaningful public engagement that is both effective and inclusive in the most comprehensive sense for legitimate democratic knowledge production and spread.

Years of research on public engagement¹ demonstrate that effective and inclusive engagement, similar to best practices for classroom teaching, requires careful planning and execution (e.g. Besley, Dudo, and Storksdieck 2015; Bull, Petts, and Evans 2010; Chilvers 2008; Cooke et al. 2017; Varner 2014). As a result, despite their intentions, scientists without such preparation at best risk failing to effectively share their messages let alone engage in mutual learning (Kahan 2013; Schultz 2002; Toman, Curtis, and Shindler 2021). At worst, scientists risk further alienating communities whose expertise scientists have discounted for years because they lack formal academic scientific expertise (Brown and Duguid 2001; Singer et al. 2017; Wallace 2020), both those who are simply not recognized knowers and especially those further margnizalized by colonialism, racism, ableism, sexism, geographic location, ideology, and other discrimination. These communities can contribute to all aspects of the research process, including but not limited to design, feasibility, and implementation of best practices. Recent efforts in the engagement field have produced not only best practices for engagement with US-majority audiences but also an emerging framework for truly inclusive engagement (Canfield et al. 2020).²

In this perspectives piece, we overview three empirical studies which highlight the problem of scientists’ lack of preparation for effective and inclusive engagement and the necessity of rebuilding models for preparing scientists for public engagement. These examples demonstrate the need for scientists to be deliberately and thoroughly prepared to involve these inclusive approaches to engagement rather than just presuming scientists can participate effectively in engagement just by having good intentions. Similar to a need to deliberately help faculty to develop as classroom teachers when they primarily apprentice in research, we must prepare researchers formally for engagement with a variety of public audiences with different backgrounds and scientific interests. Preparation could take place both through traditional academic institutional structures and outside academic programs (Doberneck et al. 2017; Doberneck, Brown, and Allen 2010; Matthews et al. 2015; Nadkarni et al. 2019; Weber, Allen, and Nadkarni 2021). Otherwise, we risk the legitimacy of these efforts to co-create scientific knowledge and share such knowledge beyond academic boundaries, already threatened by decreasing trust in institutions, if not the scientific enterprise, in the US (Brenan 2021; Funk et al. 2020; 2019; Rainie, Keeter, and Perrin 2019).

While the spectrum of public engagement opportunities is vast and growing every day (Doberneck, Glass, and Schweitzer 2010), the principles of meaningful public engagement remain fundamentally the same, yet they are not extensively taught alongside research preparation. In the US, we posit few graduate science programs offer any explicit professional development outside of research, even for those researchers who go into faculty positions with explicit responsibilities for working with broader audiences (Baram-Tsabari and Lewenstein 2017; Barthel 2020; Stofer and Wolfe 2018). In addition to formal professional development, which does exist outside of academic programs, the engagement field also needs to prioritize opportunities for practice and feedback, such as within workshops, before scientists attempt to take on more in-depth, real-world partnerships.

The need for additional preparation in engagement may seem obvious to experts in public engagement, but this need is often not obvious to researchers who are experts in scientific disciplines outside of engagement. Natural scientists, many of whom still subscribe to Merton’s norms, particularly of objectivity and personal detachment from their science (Anderson et al. 2010), also fail to recognize the myriad of considerations that influence the public’s personal and communal decisions. Namely, personal, even subjective influences as socioeconomic status, power, values, beliefs, norms, experiences, may temper or ultimately override publics’ adherence to what scientists have proposed as the best course of action for addressing a problem. In graduate school, the models of engagement and teaching surrounding scientists often reinforce exclusionary ideas of scientists as expert authorities with all the answers who, simply by sharing their knowledge, can change minds, influence behavior, or solve community problems (Ajzen 1991; Christiano and Neimand 2017; Dudo, Besley, and Yuan 2021). This is classic, misguided, deficit thinking (Moll et al. 1992) – that only a lack of knowledge prevents people from acting rationally and making data-driven decisions.

The consequences of perpetuating the deficit myth can be seen among formal classroom teachers and university professors in teaching contexts as well as purportedly community-engaged researchers (e.g. Fullwiley 2015; Roue and Nakashima 2018). When researchers working with communities fail to listen first and foremost and instead approach the situation as an all-knowing expert who comes in and gives the answers, the result could be not only an experience where researchers fail to share knowledge but also one that actually backfires, increasing distrust among communities. Communities, especially those historically marginalized and long-standing victims of extractive science, may discontinue such collaborations if they again feel their expertise is not valued and they are merely used for scientists’ own career gain (Diaw and Kusumanto 2010). If that is the case, the academic scientific enterprise would lose a wealth and variety of knowledge and creativity that could otherwise be brought to bear on global wicked problems.

Public engagement advocates have proposed frameworks for considering and expanding the roles of both scientists and the community into science communication and engagement. The Core Equitable Practices and equity compass (YESTEM Project Team 2021) promote equity and a social justice approach to youth STEM learning by considering ideas like power, approach, and centrality in their practice. The inclusive science communication framework (Canfield et al. 2020), promotes inclusion, belonging, and the integration of different ways of knowing outside of traditional western science through intentionality, reciprocity, and reflexivity (Canfield and Menezes 2020). These frameworks build upon past work to help us rethink the role of the community in our work.

In this article, we present three lines of evidence to underscore the need for formalized, sustained, reflective, increasingly advanced, and ongoing professional development for researchers. Such professional development will enable researchers to truly engage with a community, rather than focus on their personal outcomes such as professional rewards or teaching others about their work or what researchers think communities need to know. First, we discuss work related to the qualitative study of power dynamics in public engagement across scientific disciplines. Second, we present examples from the conservation field based on a mixed-methods study of herpetologists. Finally, we offer a case study of a researcher who, through both traditional professional development but also sustained learning through practicing public engagement, comes to realize his own need for humility and improvement.

Exploring public engagement by analysing power dynamics

In our first line of evidence, we suggest that academic scientists do not always consider and reflect on the role of power in their public engagement. Scholars have posed critical questions about the role of power in the interactions between academic scientists and various public audiences (Escobar 2011; Gregory 2016; Irwin, Jensen, and Jones 2013). In fact, using a power lens on engagement mechanisms can provide critical starting points for reflexivity, upon which we can build a more meaningful public engagement (Hanson 2019). We interviewed faculty and doctoral students at a public university in Florida who revealed how they articulate power dynamics in their public engagement activities, such as who controls decisions about goals or which and how academic peers affect their engagement, and what, if any, strategies they employ to address these dynamics (Hanson 2019).³

Gaventa (2011) presented a useful framework, the power cube, providing a lens through which we could view power dynamics in relationships during public engagement. Here, we discuss power dynamics through forms and levels of power but do not consider interactions which may, for example, amplify issues of power imbalances. The forms dimension acknowledges the ways that power is manifested in visible and invisible forms. Levels refers to the diverse layers of decision-making and authority; here we discuss scientists-publics and scientists-institution.

At the level of exchanges between scientists and publics, audience reactions to scientific engagement activities were a form of power. That is, how the target audience responded to science engagement played a role, though a very small one, in scientists’ perceptions of the quality or success of the engagement. Scientists’ perceptions about the success of the engagement were tempered by their own self-perceptions. In this sense, scientists generally attributed the quality of the engagement activity to their own decisions and abilities, and the audience reactions were rarely considered. Scientists considered audience reactions, such as applause, comments, or attentive silence as confirmation but may not have let contravening reactions color their perception of the quality of the engagement.

Power dynamics were also present in exchanges at the scientists-institutional level. For example, university faculty felt perceptions by peers and university metrics pressured scientists against undertaking public engagement. Specifically, faculty were strongly encouraged to align their public engagement efforts with university metrics, such as publications and funding, to ensure career progression, despite difficulty and lack of institutional support in quantifying engagement efforts or capturing outcomes. These pressures represent a power dynamic as they can support or limit any activity, including public engagement. Nevertheless, some scientists resisted these institutional pressures in various ways. Resistance included strategies such as categorizing engagement activities as research or service and negotiating public engagement elements into their contracts, both hallmarks of engaged scholarship (Doberneck, Glass, and Schweitzer 2010).

Herpetologists’ public engagement: focus on conservation outcomes

In our second line of evidence (Hecht 2021), we found that herpetologists, scientists in a discipline with explicit public relevance and input in the form of wildlife conservation, may still lack expertise in engagement best practices. From herpetologists’ own perspectives, many do not reflect deeply on the two-way engagement work model, establish firm goals, or evaluate to improve their own engagement practices, inhibiting their abilities to truly practice inclusive engagement (Hecht 2021).

We found high rates of public engagement, with 98% of survey respondents reporting they engaged with the public in the past and 96% in the previous 12 months when provided the AAAS definition of public engagement.⁴ Respondents reported participating in a mean of 4.65 ± 3.06 activity types in that time; the most common were in-person public lectures (64%), social media (56%), and citizen science (41%). Yet only one out of three respondents reported having formal training in these activities. Few respondents sought out peer-reviewed or other resources to improve their work. Further, less than a quarter evaluated their work, despite the existence of evaluation methods such as measuring changes in attitudes or behavioral intentions towards reptiles and amphibians or using broader environmental attitude scales like the New Ecological Paradigm (Dunlap et al. 2000) or Connection to Nature (Salazar, Kunkle, and Monroe 2020).

We found similar patterns in qualitative interviews with herpetologists considered by their peers to be top participants in engagement (Hecht 2021). Many had not set clear goals with one participant noting, ‘I haven't really thought about what success looks like to be honest.’ The lack of goal setting paralleled lack of evaluation due to uncertainty in defining success and a lack of knowledge or skill related to existing evaluation methods (Ernst, Monroe, and Simmons 2012). When asked how they knew their engagement was successful, some herpetologists responded, ‘I don’t. There's not really a good way,’ showing they were not aware of engagement-specific evaluation techniques. Others focused on long-term outcomes that could not be attributed solely to engagement and missed the idea of using immediate engagement outcomes to evaluate and improve their practices, saying ‘I don’t know if I could know yet … . I think it's too soon to tell.’ Therefore, the effectiveness of engagement work among herpetologists remains largely unknown, even if the activities occur regularly.

Herpetologists also often framed engagement first as an extractive endeavor or a chance to teach rather than a way to learn from or incorporate the needs, values, and knowledge of the community into their own work (Hecht 2021). One example of this is primarily framing community science as a way to fill in data gaps rather than as an opportunity to include others in more meaningful ways of natural resource co-management, which can be more successful in achieving long-term conservation goals than traditional top-down approaches in some circumstances (Sodhi, Butler, and Raven 2011). Finally, herpetologists centered wildlife needs more often than needs of the human communities involved.

Case study: a scientist in their community

Finally, in our engagement practice case study, we discuss the experiences of a repeat participant. Stofer facilitates a program for scientists from the university to have casual conversations with local community members in everyday spaces (Stofer et al. 2019; Rujimora et al. 2022). The program aims to break down barriers to engaging with science, both for researchers new to the practice as well as communities who may not have time, funds, or interest in coming to a traditional lecture-style presentation at a university. The program occurs three times a year, with approximately ten venues hosting pairs of scientists for two hours each over the course of a few weeknights and a weekend.

One researcher, new to a tenure-track position but with an appointment to participate in engagement through Cooperative Extension, has participated in several instances of the program since starting at the university. New program participants attend a 1-hour workshop introducing principles of public engagement and the format of the program. As the program does away with formal presentations to lower barriers for participation, scientists do not need to do any other preparation. Instead, they are encouraged to have unstructured conversations with patrons who they encounter in the bar, coffee shop, library, or laundromat venues.

In this case study, the researchers chose to attend a location near their home, located in a rural area a 15-minute drive from the university town. After participating at that same venue over several instances, the researcher remarked to the author that the microscope they brought that evening was a hit. They continued, saying they would never have thought to do so, implying that his experience with the community prompted him to do so, even though the pre-program workshop had explicitly suggested scientists bring props. The scientist also remarked on the relationship they developed with the venue owner and regular patrons, who began to recognize the scientist, a sentiment echoed by the owner. Sustained professional development through practice over time allowed the scientist to build rapport and learn better ways to engage, similar to teachers learning to improve their practice in a real classroom (Glazer and Hannafin 2006). Such meaningful engagement is essential for true collaboration and impactful change for societal issues.

Implications for professional development

To conclude, we present preliminary recommendations to help scientists practice true inclusive public engagement based on our work, that of other researchers and public engagement practitioners, and teacher professional development literature. First, scholars of public engagement and especially people preparing other scientists to practice public engagement must continue expansion and improvement of professional development offerings. Many scientists lack professional development in engagement of any sort (Hecht 2021; Royal Society 2006), a key area of need as more scientists engage and engage more frequently and extensively with the public (American Association for the Advancement of Science 2016; Pew Research Center 2015; Rao 2016; Royal Society 2006). It is imperative that university scientists are aware of and understand that engagement is steeped in power and does not operate in a vacuum (Bevan, Calabrese Barton, and Garibay 2020; Canfield et al. 2020; Finlay et al. 2021; Polk and Diver 2020). Scientists also need support in setting goals and evaluating their engagement activities (Rowe et al. 2005; Stylinski et al. 2018; Whitehouse et al. 2014), and that support needs to be sustained and ongoing, much like teacher professional development models suggest (Desimone and Garet 2015; Garet et al. 2001). Attention to the development of an impact identity that includes the societal implications of a scientist’s work could also improve engagement outcomes (Risien and Storksdieck 2018).

Some specific recommendations for improving professional development follow for scientists to complement and support the activities of full-time communication and engagement practitioners. From the beginning, have scientists collaborate with both engagement scholars and the communities with whom they will engage to set mutual goals for engagement, including how scientists should participate. Explicitly discuss inclusive frameworks so as not to perpetuate deficit models, and create evaluation activities and an iterative framework from the beginning to ensure reflection and accountability. Encourage scientists to practice reflexive thinking about inherent power dynamics throughout the design and conduct of public engagement activities (Chilvers 2013), role-play and practice (Halversen and Tran 2010), or study of other public engagement experiences as models (Stofer et al. 2019). Consider apprenticeships or partnering with experienced public engagement practitioners, especially those trusted by communities with whom newer scientists to public engagement might wish to work, while remaining attentive to power dynamics between faculty and practitioners. Finally, though it is outside our scope here, we suggest investigating the fields of science, technology, and society for views on what is scientific knowledge and who can be an expert (e.g. Zeidler et al. 2002). We also suggest more preparation with some publics to help them recognize their own power in engagement interactions. We are none of us experts in everything, even public engagement practices, and we therefore we ourselves must continue to work with other scientists as well as communities. Only by moving away from approaches centering scientists or any single group as the owners of all or the most valuable knowledge are we most likely to develop multi-way, mutual learning and benefit approaches to better serve all parties involved in a truly democratic manner.

Acknowledgements

All work referencing empirical data was approved by the University of Florida Institutional Review Board.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Research on public engagement in herpetology was funded by a Roger Conant Grant in Herpetology from the Society for the Study of Amphibian and Reptiles to Kirsten Hecht. The development of talk science with me was supported by NSF OCE 1038990. Division of Ocean Sciences and the research on talk science is supported by Hatch FLA-AEC-005367, FLA-AEC-005868 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture to Kathryn Stofer.

Notes on contributors

Kathryn A. Stofer

Kathryn A. Stofer, PhD, is a Research Associate Professor of STEM Education and Outreach at the University of Florida. Dr. Stofer has been working in science education and public engagement since 2001, when she started as a programming and exhibit prototyping intern at the Boston Museum of Science. Stofer completed her PhD in free-choice science learning at Oregon State University in 2013.

David Hanson

David Hanson, PhD, completed his doctorate at the University of Florida in public engagement with science in 2019 and served as an evaluator for the University of Florida UF/IFAS Extension Food and Nutrition Program until 2021. Dr. Hanson began as Senior Consultant at Equal Measure in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in June 2021.

Kirsten Hecht

Kirsten Hecht, PhD, completed her doctorate in interdisciplinary ecology with a focus on public engagement with science at the University of Florida and was a postdoctoral researcher in public engagement with science through June 2021. Dr. Hecht will began work with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission in August 2021.

Notes

1 We use the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) definition of public engagement, ‘intentional, meaningful interactions that provide opportunities for mutual learning between scientists and the public’ (American Association for the Advancement of Science 2016).

2 Except as noted, throughout this work we use public engagement interchangeably with inclusive science communication (ISC). As defined by Canfield and Menezes (2020), ISC subsumes engagement while centering equity and inclusion, but engagement, which does not traditionally explicitly center equity and inclusion, is the choice of this special issue.

3 For clarity, university scientists include both faculty and doctoral students, unless otherwise stated.

4 Data collected prior to March 2020 and COVID-19-related shutdowns.