Attitudes towards outreach in particle physics

Achintya Rao

26 April 2016

Conclusions

Outreach activities

  • Most respondents to survey have participated in outreach in the past
    • F/M ratio ~same
  • Most said they will participate in the coming 12 months

Attitudes to specific groups

  • Colleagues — most important, most knowledgeable, easiest to communicate with
  • Science journalists, school students, non-specialist public on par for importance and for ease of communication
  • Science journalists more knowledgeable than students and public

A bit about me

  • Science Communicator (2010 — present)
    Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration at CERN
  • Doctoral Student (2014 — present)
    UWE Science Communication Unit, Bristol
    • MA in Science Journalism (2009 — 2010)
      City University, London
    • BSc in Physics (2005 — 2008)
      St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai (Bombay)



Twitter: @RaoOfPhysics | GitHub: @RaoOfPhysics
This presentation: github.com/RaoOfPhysics/201604_PCST

Public engagement

  • Conversation dominated with research fields that have:
    • direct impact
    • immediate impact
  • What about fundamental research?

My PhD project

“Engagement” → “Outreach”

  • used to refer to all science-communication activities “designed for an audience outside academia” (Crettaz von Roten, 2011, p.54)
  • used among particle physicists to refer to:
    • working with schools
    • direct dialogue with the public
    • disseminating information through the media

The term “outreach” refers to all science communication and education activities that bring scientific research to audiences outside the research community. It is also known as “popularisation”.

— note included in survey

Research questions

  • What are the attitudes towards outreach within the particle-physics community and what are the motivations for and barriers against participating
  • Do these vary w.r.t. age, gender and academic position

Research questions (…)

  • How are these influenced by
    • funding bodies
    • national expectations towards outreach
    • the multicultural nature of international collaborations
  • How does the community perceive the usefulness and impact of outreach

CERN

The European Laboratory for Particle Physics

  • Geneva, Switzerland
  • host laboratory for international collaborations
  • ~half of all 20,000 particle physicists

The CMS Collaboration

Compact Muon Solenoid

  • one of the two teams that discovered the Higgs boson in 2012
  • people (June 2015)
    • over 4000 physicists, engineers, students (not including technicians and admin)
    • 183 institutes, universities, laboratories from 42 countries
    • 80+ nationalities

Data collection for quantitative analysis

Electronic survey distributed by e-mail

  • Sent to the whole collaboration via mailing list
  • Three reminders sent to whole list
  • Engineers reminded separately as well
  • Representatives from low-response countries reminded separately

Responses

  • over 400, but a few duplicates
  • final count: 391 valid responses
  • ~10% of the collaboration

CMS member countries

Gender

Age

Participation in outreach

Previous participation

Last 12 months

Total no. of activities → Time spent on outreach

>100 2 >100 0 19 0 01–05 224 01–05 06–10 56 06–10 11–50 41 11–50 51–100 6 51–100 More than 8 hours per week, on average 6 More than 8 hours per week, on average None 18 None Up to 1 hour per week, on average 74 Up to 1 hour per week, on average Up to 10 hours in total 117 Up to 10 hours in total Up to 2 hours per month, on average 103 Up to 2 hours per month, on average Up to 8 hours per week, on average 30 Up to 8 hours per week, on average

Next 12 months?

Past → Future

Maybe 117 Maybe No 25 No Yes 249 Yes No 43 No Yes 348 Yes

Attitudes towards specific groups

Importance

How important it is for you, personally, to communicate your research with the following groups

1 2 3 4 5
Not important at all Very important

Knowledge

How knowledgeable do you think each group, as a whole, is about your research area

1 2 3 4 5
Not knowledgeable at all Very knowledgeable

Ease

How easy it is for you to talk about your research with these groups

1 2 3 4 5
Very difficult Very easy

1 2 3 4 5
Not “favourable” “Favourable”

Groups

Colleagues · Other scientists · Press officers
Teachers · University students · School students
General journalists · Science journalists · Other media
Politicians · Industry · Non-specialist public

Colleagues

Students

Science Journalists

Non-specialist public

Importance

Importance (…)

Colleagues → Students → SciJournos → NSP

2 6 2 3 15 3 4 49 4 5 321 5 1 27 1 2 49 2 3 99 3 4 124 4 5 92 5 1 26 1 2 31 2 3 71 3 4 152 4 5 111 5 1 16 1 2 42 2 3 93 3 4 134 4 5 106 5

Knowledge

Knowledge (…)

Colleagues → Students → SciJournos → NSP

2 2 2 3 11 3 4 83 4 5 295 5 1 173 1 2 155 2 3 53 3 4 6 4 5 4 5 1 22 1 2 89 2 3 166 3 4 101 4 5 13 5 1 122 1 2 160 2 3 88 3 4 19 4 5 2 5

Ease

Ease (…)

Colleagues → Students → SciJournos → NSP

0 13 0 2 2 2 3 7 3 4 83 4 5 286 5 0 14 0 1 59 1 2 69 2 3 99 3 4 87 4 5 63 5 0 51 0 1 14 1 2 41 2 3 91 3 4 129 4 5 65 5 0 22 0 1 29 1 2 48 2 3 115 3 4 116 4 5 61 5

Conclusions

Outreach activities

  • Most respondents to survey have participated in outreach in the past
    • F/M ratio ~same
  • Most said they will participate in the coming 12 months

Attitudes to specific groups

  • Colleagues — most important, most knowledgeable, easiest to communicate with
  • Science journalists, school students, non-specialist public on par for importance and for ease of communication
  • Science journalists more knowledgeable than students and public

Acknowledgements

Emma Weitkamp, Clare Wilkinson, Erik Stengler, Christine Sutton, for supervising my research

Achille Petrilli, CMS Head of Communications, for supporting my research

Special thanks to Richard Smith-Unna (t: @blahah404) for help with R code!

R + RStudio

reveal.js

plotly

RAW

Git + GitHub

Thank you