Evaluating Nanoscience and Technology (NST) Experts` Science Communication Skills Douring a Guided Discourse

Discussing the emerging field of nanoscale science and technology (NST) in school science is a fruitful way of enhancing up-to-date scientific and technological literacy. Scientists in the field of NST can bridge the gap between the contemporary research and the science education community by providing different outreach programs and lectures. However, scientific arguments in these forums often do not match the audience. Explicating the scientific arguments by giving scientists the appropriate context of the target group may promote better communication of modern topics by scientists to students and teachers.

This study presents an intervention of one-hour guided discourse that was designed to support a better outreach communication of physics experts to middle school students. During the discourse, the scientist is presented with two sets of concepts using a visual board and asked to find connections between them. After connecting middle school physics concepts to a list of seven NST concepts, scientists are invited to describe their research.

The findings show change in concepts used by the scientists for describing their research with a meaningful shift to using concepts from the middle school physics curriculum and decrease in use of complex scientific jargon. A qualitative look at the results, divides the participants into groups according to the way they were influenced by the intervention. Each group shows distinctive set of characteristics for communicating their own research. Further analysis intend to optimize the features of the discourse with reference to different needs that relate to different types of communicators.

Based on the results we plan to develop a protocol to prepare scientists for public speaking according to their beliefs and the characteristics of the target audience. If learning science is considered becoming a part of the scientific community, tools for science communication can lead to a more broad and inclusive community.