Use knowledge of the participants to identify clear and specific goals and target outcomes for the chemistry communication experience

This question is at the core of effective design because it puts the participants and their needs or goals first, an approach shown to support effective science communication (Fischoff, 2013; NRC, 2009, 2014; see also Chapter 4).

As noted in previous chapters, when considering participants' needs, recognize that there is not a single “public” that engages in informal science learning, but rather many publics (Burns et al., 2003; McCallie et al., 2009). If the chemistry communication event targets a particular group, the chemist should examine the motivations and interests of that group. If the activity seeks to engage multiple groups, consider whether these groups have similar interests.

It is also critical to consider one's own goals: Why do you wish to reach a particular group? Are your goals relevant to the interests of participants? If the goals of the chemist differ from the interests of participants, the chemist will need to either change the communication event goals or develop a method to draw participants with relevant interests. Often, participants are “constructed” by the type of communication event; that is, interested people are the ones who attend (Delborne, 2011). Strategic communication event planning may involve seeking out participants with interests relevant to the chemist's communication goals. In fact, participant-centered goals and the chemistry communicator's goals can be easier to align if the chemist is in a position to strategically select the participants.

As an example, consider the interests of these two groups attending a talk on water chemistry: members of a local science hobbyist group interested in reducing pond algae in town parks and citizens in a town recently affected by an industrial chemical spill into a waterway. Although the chemistry subject matter may be similar, the interests of the hobbyist group and the citizen group will probably differ widely.

The event designer should map out as much known information as possible to match the focus of the event with the interests and knowledge of the anticipated participants. Specific questions to ask include What will they find interesting, relevant, or engaging? How can I find out what is relevant or of concern to them? What prior knowledge will the participants have? For example, they may have technical expertise from formal education or training or may have some familiarity with the topic from Internet searches¹ or reading Wikipedia entries. Considering these questions leads to the second design principle for effective informal chemistry communication:

Use understanding of participants to make the experience engaging and positive

Once information about the participants has been acquired, the event designer's goals can be investigated. These goals are generally framed as outcomes for participants, although they may also include longer-term societal impacts. As discussed in the previous chapter, two frameworks (Friedman, 2008; NRC, 2009) can assist in clarifying these outcomes. When specifying project outcomes, chemists will need to identify the relationships between participant group, goals, and venue. One can develop a goal first and then seek an appropriate venue, or vice versa. Whichever is identified first, the developer must have these three elements well described and in accord with each other to achieve the desired outcomes.

Benefits of Collaboration

Collaborations are invaluable for communicating chemistry in informal settings, as few individuals or organizations have all the knowledge, skills, access to participants, and other resources needed to develop successful activities. Collaboration has been characterized as

a mutually beneficial and well-defined relationship entered into by two or more organizations to achieve common goals. The relationship includes a commitment to mutual relationships and goals; a jointly developed structure and shared responsibility; mutual authority and accountability for success; and sharing of resources and rewards. (Mattessich and Monsey, 1992, p. 42)

Collaborations—between chemists and experts in science communication, informal science learning, and chemistry education—not only support communication events but also (perhaps more importantly) build a community of practice that shares common goals and effective practices for communicating chemistry. Communities of practice, as defined by Lave and Wenger (1991), are “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” The scale of such communities can vary; the field of informal science learning comprises multiple communities of practice that share common commitments to engaging participants, encouraging them to interact with natural and designed phenomena, providing portrayals of science, and building on learners' prior knowledge and interests (NRC, 2009, pp. 297-298).

Collaborations are especially valuable in communicating chemistry. Communicators in public information offices and staff members in informal learning settings often have little knowledge of chemistry and even less knowledge of current chemistry research. Chemistry researchers have limited knowledge about learning in informal settings. Thus, there are potential benefits for both parties. As Daniel Steinberg notes (in Crone, 2006, p. 1),

science centers and museums, already accustomed to dealing with a variety of audiences, have staff trained in the communication of science concepts. They are well situated to assist facilities in meeting communication goals. The relationship is beneficial for both partners. The researchers gain greater visibility and reach a bigger audience, and the science museum gains effective and interesting public programming that can help boost attendance.

Collaborations not only link chemistry experts with informal learning or science communication experts but also provide venues for the informal chemistry learning event. For example, public information officers may have contacts at newspapers, magazines, or websites that are appropriate vehicles for written materials by chemists. Other vehicles include lectures, demonstrations, programs, hands-on activities, theater performances, forum discussions, exhibits, and so forth. These vehicles might already exist or might be created by the team of collaborators for a specific activity. Sometimes a vehicle results in a collaboration. For example, a university chemist might work with an informal educator from a science museum to take an activity developed by the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net)² to an after-school program; NISE Net is an existing vehicle that links research scientists with informal learning educators.

Though tours are possible, members of the public do not usually visit scientists' research labs, so locations for informal chemistry communication are needed. Science museums and science cafés (often held in a pub or a coffee shop) are ideal settings. These spaces are supported by personnel who can provide guidance on effective ways to use the facility. Collaborating with an organization that can provide an appropriate venue reflects another design principle for effective informal chemistry learning from Chapter 4:

Developing and Sustaining a Successful Collaboration

Although collaborating with (for example) a science center clearly offers benefits to chemists wishing to develop informal learning events, it can also pose challenges, as discussed in Chapters 2 and 4.

A guide from NISE Net offers useful information to address such challenges (Crone, 2006). Based on recent research and practice in science communication, the book provides advice on establishing and sustaining successful informal learning collaborations. It outlines strategies to create effective partnerships and presents guiding questions to help prospective partners determine if the proposed alliance is strategic. Excerpted below are some of the guide's recommendations for successful collaboration. Individuals and organizations can establish and sustain successful collaborations by doing the following (Crone, 2006, p. 10):

• “involving a cross-section of members, representing all the interests of the collaborating partners;
• learning about the other team members' jobs and their background and expertise;
• developing a collegial relationship involving mutual respect, understanding, and trust;
• defining clear roles and guidelines for making decisions;
• promoting open and frequent communication;
• being willing to compromise and remaining open-minded;
• defining attainable goals and objectives;
• encouraging a shared vision among the partners;
• ensuring that the project has sufficient funds, staff, materials, and time.”

Collaborating with organizations can also provide chemists with access to professional development sessions to gain experience in communications, informal science education, interactions with media, and other such fields. Ideally, a chemist would develop the ability to effectively communicate science to nonscientists long before beginning a professional career. However, undergraduate chemistry students get limited experience in communication; typically, their communication experience focuses on presenting their research to other chemists. Although many chemistry majors do participate in communication activities, training to effectively communicate with the public is uneven at best.

Graduate students would also benefit from training in communication with nonscientists. A recent American Chemical Society report (ACS, 2012) recommends that graduate students should be able to “communicate complex topics to both technical and nontechnical audiences, and to effectively influence decisions.” However, few graduate schools provide such education, and most of the current chemistry workforce graduated before any such courses were available. Therefore, most chemists would benefit from professional development to improve communication skills, such as the Chemistry Communication Leadership Institute (NRC, 2011) and other training programs described in Chapter 2.

Building Trust

Building trust between chemists and participants is an essential dimension of any effective communication activity and can be a communication goal unto itself. In general, public confidence in the leadership of the scientific community is high (Smith and Son, 2013). Efforts to build trust may help to overcome the potential communication barriers in chemistry (see Chapter 4) and to maintain the high confidence level Americans have in the scientific institution.

Trust has three primary dimensions: confidence, integrity, and dependability (Hon and Grunig, 1999). Public perception of a scientist's competence and warmth also contribute to trust (Fiske and Dupree, 2015). Scientists may be most trusted when they communicate about scientific information, as opposed to policy (NRC, 2014). But, effective science communication activities often focus on the science most relevant to the decisions people face (Fischoff, 2013), and students are attracted to chemistry when they encounter topics relevant to their lives (Glynn et al., 2007). Therefore, chemists must balance the benefits of engaging participants by focusing on their concerns—which often means focusing on policy issues—with the potential costs of eliciting political, cultural, or social “baggage” related to those policy issues.

Dr. Katherine Rowan, an expert on climate change communication, proposes that it is possible to overcome the barriers associated with difficult topics and to earn the confidence of participants by first conducting listening sessions to learn about participants' views, concerns, and values (Rowan, 2013). Information from such listening sessions, which could be conducted as part of Element 1 of this framework, can be used to design a communication event that aligns with participants' interests and needs, which will generate their trust. In addition, conducting a test of the event, as discussed subsequently, might uncover additional political, social, or cultural issues that could limit participants' engagement and learning, and could inform strategies to address those issues.

A chemist's institutional affiliations may influence how the public perceives some topics presented by the chemist (Critchley, 2008; Scheufele et al., 2009). A survey conducted in 2000 found that approximately one-third of respondents had an unfavorable view of the chemical industry, which was viewed less favorably than nine other science-related industries (NSB, 2002). Thus, building trust requires not only that chemists engage with members of the public, but also uphold research integrity and be transparent about their affiliations and motivations for communicating.

Designing Event Components

When identifying specific components of the communication event (e.g., visual aids, exhibits, game modules, demonstrations), the chemist should first consider the goals identified in Element 1. The components should be designed to advance the goals. If the goals include learning chemistry concepts, the chemist must consider the participants' prior knowledge and any potential barriers to learning. As discussed in Chapter 4, the abstract nature of molecular interactions, difficulty with the relationship between submicroscopic structures and macroscopic effects, and a lack of fluency with the tools of representation and symbolism in the field can be obstacles to understanding chemistry's real-world applications. At the same time, the research discussed in that chapter has identified several strategies for informal chemistry learning that could contribute to the design of components: The use of multiple linked representations to communicate a single concept is likely to help informal learners grasp it. Analogies and visual representations, such as animations and simulations, help novices understand abstract ideas and phenomena that cannot be directly observed.

The collaborations formed in Element 2 might facilitate the design of a component by bringing knowledge to the project. Science communication and informal science learning experts can facilitate the design of the overall communication event and of individual components and can sometimes identify specific components. For example, experts in informal science learning or science communication might know of a hands-on chemistry experiment that has been shown, by research or evaluation, to be effective (i.e., to advance one or more of the targeted goals for individuals who are similar to the planned participants); the chemist could simply adopt the experiment or could modify it to increase its alignment with the upcoming event's goals, participants, and venue. In addition, partnering with informal science educators and science communication experts will help ensure that the overall event design follows the research-based principles identified in Chapter 4.

Testing the Event

Testing a prototype of the chemistry communication experience helps to ensure that it will meet the needs and interests of participants. Crone (2006, p. 15) argues that “[t]o be truly visitor-centered, the development process for museum exhibits and programs must be iterative, with cycles of prototyping and evaluation.” Developers of informal science exhibits have found that watching visitors use and react to a working prototype of a particular component helps them gauge visitors' enjoyment and interest, test the physical and ergonomic aspects of the component, and adjust any signage or other text to ensure that directions or information is appropriate for the participants (Crone, 2006). Other methods to measure participants' reactions to a prototype include focus groups, written surveys, and monitoring how much time they spend with individual components of an overall experience.

To plan for testing (formative evaluation) and evaluation of the final event (summative evaluation), the chemist should reflect on the questions presented in Box 6-3 and develop an evaluation plan, as discussed in the previous chapter.

Practical Arrangements

Designing and implementing effective chemistry communication experiences is a complex process involving the characteristics and interests of the participants, the event goals, the location, the duration of the event, and other factors. The chemist should attend to these practical matters. For example, because participation in informal events is often voluntary, it is important to promote the event to potential participants. Publicity via communication channels that are used and trusted by the potential participants (e.g., a hometown newspaper, a museum website) will probably attract more participants than publicity using other communication channels (e.g., an advertisement in a national newspaper).