Preparing Scientists to Be Science Communicators

Baram‐Tsabari, Ayelet; Lewenstein, Bruce V.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-50398-1_22

Cited by 25 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Exposing scientists to these ideas, though science communication training courses and though active participation in PES initiatives, could help overcome the barriers and encourage scientists to further participate (Brownell et al 2013;Concannon and Grenon 2016). Furthermore, teaching young scientists science communication skills at an early stage of their training can inform their scientific identity and increase their communication competence (Baram-Tsabari and Lewenstein 2017;Brownell et al 2013). We found a striking difference between young and established scientists in terms of their views and responsibility toward the public.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between Vision and Reality: A Study of Scientists’ Views on Citizen Science

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Baram‐Tsabari

et al. 2017

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between Vision and Reality: A Study of Scientists’ Views on Citizen Science

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et al. 2017

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“…Many challenges exist in addressing specific aspects of science communication training, including public communication ( 10 ). These can be overarching challenges at the systemic level or challenges more easily addressed either prior to or during training.…”

Section: Challenges and Recommendations For Trainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing the Culture of Science Communication Training for Junior Scientists

Bankston

McDowell

2018

J Microbiol Biol Educ.

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Being successful in an academic environment places many demands on junior scientists. Science communication currently may not be adequately valued and rewarded, and yet communication to multiple audiences is critical for ensuring that it remains a priority in today’s society. Due to the potential for science communication to produce better scientists, facilitate scientific progress, and influence decision-making at multiple levels, training junior scientists in both effective and ethical science communication practices is imperative, and can benefit scientists regardless of their chosen career path. However, many challenges exist in addressing specific aspects of this training. Principally, science communication training and resources should be made readily available to junior scientists at institutions, and there is a need to scale up existing science communication training programs and standardize core aspects of these programs across universities, while also allowing for experimentation with training. We propose a comprehensive core training program be adopted by universities, utilizing a centralized online resource with science communication information from multiple stakeholders. In addition, the culture of science must shift toward greater acceptance of science communication as an essential part of training. For this purpose, the science communication field itself needs to be developed, researched and better understood at multiple levels. Ultimately, this may result in a larger cultural change toward acceptance of professional development activities as valuable for training scientists.

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“…This highlights the need for science communication training as a form of professional development and as part of graduate level education. Science communication educators can use the program to assess the progress of their students by evaluating their choice of appropriate vocabulary, and compare the effectiveness of different interventions [ 59 – 61 ].…”

Section: Social and Educational Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automatic jargon identifier for scientists engaging with the public and science communication educators

et al. 2017

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Scientists are required to communicate science and research not only to other experts in the field, but also to scientists and experts from other fields, as well as to the public and policymakers. One fundamental suggestion when communicating with non-experts is to avoid professional jargon. However, because they are trained to speak with highly specialized language, avoiding jargon is difficult for scientists, and there is no standard to guide scientists in adjusting their messages. In this research project, we present the development and validation of the data produced by an up-to-date, scientist-friendly program for identifying jargon in popular written texts, based on a corpus of over 90 million words published in the BBC site during the years 2012–2015. The validation of results by the jargon identifier, the De-jargonizer, involved three mini studies: (1) comparison and correlation with existing frequency word lists in the literature; (2) a comparison with previous research on spoken language jargon use in TED transcripts of non-science lectures, TED transcripts of science lectures and transcripts of academic science lectures; and (3) a test of 5,000 pairs of published research abstracts and lay reader summaries describing the same article from the journals PLOS Computational Biology and PLOS Genetics. Validation procedures showed that the data classification of the De-jargonizer significantly correlates with existing frequency word lists, replicates similar jargon differences in previous studies on scientific versus general lectures, and identifies significant differences in jargon use between abstracts and lay summaries. As expected, more jargon was found in the academic abstracts than lay summaries; however, the percentage of jargon in the lay summaries exceeded the amount recommended for the public to understand the text. Thus, the De-jargonizer can help scientists identify problematic jargon when communicating science to non-experts, and be implemented by science communication instructors when evaluating the effectiveness and jargon use of participants in science communication workshops and programs.

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Preparing Scientists to Be Science Communicators

Cited by 25 publications

References 54 publications

Between Vision and Reality: A Study of Scientists’ Views on Citizen Science

Between Vision and Reality: A Study of Scientists’ Views on Citizen Science

Changing the Culture of Science Communication Training for Junior Scientists

Automatic jargon identifier for scientists engaging with the public and science communication educators

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