Scientists’ views of public science writing: A large-scale analysis of successful NSF abstracts

Sarah Tinker Perrault, Oregon State University

Abstract

Despite decades of work by science communication scholars to encourage democratically-oriented practices in public science communication, approaches based on a deficit model appear to be enduring and even increasing. Studies of scientists’ communication practices suggest that it may endure because scientists themselves operate from a deficit model. This article complements existing studies, which tend to be either small in scope or focused on only one area of research, via a large-scale analysis of 4,681 successful NSF abstracts from all areas of research. It specifically examines abstracts in terms of ethos, distinguishing between a deficit-based didactic ethos and a more democratically oriented relational ethos, and finds that the deficit model pervades successful NSF grant proposals. It also identifies positive signs in counter-examples, and offers suggestions for further work.

Key words: Broader Impacts criterion; deficit model; ethos; public science communication; science and society

Introduction

In 1986 Written Communication published Jeanne Fahnestock’s “Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts,” an article motivated in part by concern about “the impact of science reporting on public deliberation,” and the issue was still pressing when Written Communication reprinted the article in 1998. In the decades since, writing researchers have given increasingly more attention to public science communication, with much attention focused on understanding how different approaches support or, more commonly, do not support robust public deliberation about science-related issues.

Along with other scholars in science and technology studies, rhetoricians have been especially concerned about the persistence of the “deficit model” of science communication. The deficit model is generally characterized by a belief that publics are lacking in one or more ways, that when it comes to science, “the wider public suffers an interest deficit, a knowledge deficit, an attitudinal deficit or a cognitive deficit” (Bauer, 2016, p. 398). Public science communication in this model is a didactic enterprise, a one-way flow of information from those with valuable knowledge (technical experts) to those without (everyone else) meant to remediate the public deficiencies so non-experts will be properly interested in, knowledgeable about, and supportive of science. This goal runs counter to a rhetorical understanding of deliberative processes as essential to sound and inclusive decision making, including about science-related issues.

In keeping with rhetoric’s emphasis on “miscommunication and its remedies” (Richards, 2001, p. 4), scholars have worked to develop alternative approaches, to replace the deficit model with what Palmer and Schibeci (2012) term a “deliberative model” of public science communication. A deliberative model reflects beliefs that democratic processes are vital to sound decision making about science-related issues; that public interests are served by a plurality of views and voices; and that scientific input is an important, but not exclusive or superior, source of input for public decisions about science-related issues.

Some scientists, including scientists in influential positions, support efforts to create deliberative approaches to science communication. For example, former NSF director Alan Leshner has repeatedly called for this change; in 2006 he talked about the need for more engagement between scientists and publics that will “give each group a far better understanding and greater empathy for the perspective of the other” (qtd. in Besley, 2015, p. 201), and in 2010 he noted that public engagement means “communicating with the public rather than at the public on scientific research” (National Science Foundation, 2010b, p. 4). Similarly, an NSF and American Association for the Advancement of Science workshop description emphasizes the importance of “scientists and engineers who foster information-sharing and respect between science and the public” (National Science Foundation, 2010a).Despite this support, however, efforts in this direction appear to have yielded little, if any, progress (Bauer, 2016). To remedy this communication problem, we need to understand why it persists. One possible reason is that the deficit model is deeply entrenched among scientists. Studies suggest that deficit mindset and approaches are widespread across scientific communities: that scientists tend to think in terms of one-way communication (Davies, 2013), to think science communication should sell science (Davies, 2013; Peters et al., 2008), and to hold negative views of publics (Besley and Nisbet, 2013; Davies 2008a, 2008b). Other research suggests that science organizations also contribute to deficit-model approaches to science communication (Palmer and Schibeci, 2012; Roberts, 2009; Simis et al., 2016).

However, while this research strongly suggests that scientists orient toward deficit models, questions remain. Johnson et al. (2014) note that we “know little about U.S. scientists’ perceptions of outreach” partly because “Most studies have relied on samples that are unusually small, with statistical analyses of outreach by U.S. scientists generally utilizing samples comprising less than 100 scientists” (p. 82). Besley (2015) likewise identifies “a large qualitative literature has emerged that suggests that scientists have a range of negative views about the public” (p. 201) and argues for supplementing that “substantial qualitative literature” (p. 202) with quantitative studies. Finally, Davies (2008a) points out that most studies of scientists and communication focus on controversial topics, leaving a need to explore how scientists talk about communication “in a more generalised—rather than controversy-focused—context” (p. 16).

This article answers those calls by examining successful National Science Foundation (NSF) abstracts to find out how scientists characterize public science communication. The background section provides a theoretical framing that explains the deficit and deliberative models in terms of ethos, then offers an overview of what existing studies have found about the degree to which scientists use a deficit model approach. Following this, the article describes a study that examined 4,681 successful NSF abstracts to learn how much scientists value public-facing activities, and examined a subset of 520 abstracts to see how they present the goals of those activities. The study identifies numeric trends and illustrates each trend with characteristic examples. While the study finds that the deficit model does endure overall, it also identifies some positive examples of deliberative model communication. It ends with some implications for scientists and science communication scholars, and with suggestions for further research.

Background

The two models mentioned above, deficit and deliberative, reflect different understandings of what public science communication should accomplish. Scholars in many fields, from sociology and history to philosophy, have talked about the roles of public discourse about science-related issues. Rhetoricians have been essential to the conversation because of recognition that the deficit model runs counter to the aims of civic discourse, and because rhetoric is not only about misunderstanding and its remedies, but specifically about matters of public discussion and decision making. It is, as Alan Gross (1994) said, “the public means of coming to a public understanding concerning public issues” (p. 5), and the deficit and deliberative models reflect very different ideas about how publics should come to understanding regarding science-related issues. This section explains each model in rhetorical terms, focusing on those understandings and the assumptions that underlie each model’s communicative purpose, then shows how each can be understood in terms of ethos.

Deficit model

Under the deficit model, the public (understood as a unitary construct) is not expected to develop their its understandings of science-related issues, even when those issues are matters of public concern. By definition, the deficit model views “the public” in terms of what it allegedly lacks; it says non-experts are not interested enough in science, don’t know enough about science, and are not supportive enough of science. Because of this characterization of the public as ignorant, deficit-based public science communication is a one-way flow of information from knowledgeable experts to a public that has nothing to offer in return. The logic is that this public, once adequately equipped with knowledge, will come to rational, evidence-based decisions (i.e. decisions that align with expert opinion).

This characterization of the deficit model may seem extreme, but it is accurate, as shown in research on scientists’ views of public engagement. In a survey of 1,354 biomedical researchers, 92% “identified ‘a better-educated general public’” as their goal, and 93% “indicated that achieving ‘a more positive public attitude toward research’ was an important motivator” (Peters et al., 2008, p. 204). Peters et al.’s findings complement qualitative work by Davies which finds similar view. In a study of seven research groups, Davies (2008b) found scientists talk about how public science communication should educate people, “with scientific information being given to a deficient public,” and should inspire greater public interest (p. 419). In a 2013 study, Davies identifies reasons people have for doing public engagement work, including “the need to provide information to the general public and, specifically, to correct misunderstandings” (p. 696) and “inspiring or exciting the public about science or research” (p. 697). A number of studies by Besley and colleagues point in the same direction, including a 2013 meta-analysis from Besley and Nisbet summarizes studies that have found “that scientists view the public as non-rational and unsystematic in their thinking” and as “emotional,” “fear prone,” “self-interested” (p. 647). They also described scientists’ desire to have the public provide “legitimacy and validation” and said that even when a scientist’s “position appeared to be operationalized as a duty to empower citizens to make good decisions… a good decision was understood as one that was consistent with scien¬tists’ point of view, and empowerment was understood as education” (p. 651). Besley and Nisbet similarly report “a sense that (industry) scientists viewed it as their job to work directly with regulators to protect the public because the public is incapable of and uninterested in doing so” (p. 651). They conclude that overall, “scientists recognize that they have a role to play in supporting public debate but emphasize a need to educate the public so that non-experts will make policy choices in line with the preferences of scientists” (p. 655, emphasis added). In contrast, “Only a small proportion of scientists appear to view their role as an enabler of public participation” in both the US and the UK (p. 655). What we see here are the beliefs that underlie deficit model approaches to communication as a didactic mission to mend a broken public.

This perspective misunderstands the nature of science-related public discourse in a few ways. First, deficit model thinking overlooks the fact that publics are multiple, with society consisting of “a plurality of publics… a reticulate public sphere, in which participants are engaged in multiple, local, interactive webs of meaning and commitment that arise through discourse” (Hauser, 1999, p. xi).

Second, this way of thinking ignore the reality that publics are in fact interested in science; for example, the National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators consistently shows that Americans are interested in science, with over 80% being “moderately” or “strongly” interested in science and technology (p. 7-23). Furthermore, even where disinterest exists, it is not necessarily the problem it’s held up to be in deficit model accounts. When it comes to specific areas, publics form around what is interesting and relevant to them, and disinterest in a specific area may simply signal that people prioritize other interests, or have their own reasons to remain ignorant about a given area of science (Michael, 1996; Wynne, 1991).

Third, approaches based on the deficit model also misunderstand the kinds of scientific knowledge being used in public discussions. Deficit-based communication assumes that scientific information only enters the public domain once it is strongly certain (e.g. verified by multiple studies, with one interpretation accepted by all relevant experts); this is part of what historian John Ziman calls “the Legend” of science as “an infallible method for achieving absolutely perfect truth, so that is ‘irrational’ to defy its intellectual authority, or even to discuss the aspects of the world to which it might not apply” (Ziman, 2000, p. 58). That view shows in the idea that scientific knowledge can solve the problem of uncertainty, that it allows clear answers, and that “science is particularly good at putting an end to controversies” (Ziman, 2000, p. 253). In reality, sometimes the knowledge provided by experts is uncertain, and sciences do not offer clear-cut answers; Priest (2013) argues that “science-related policy decisions are not always—perhaps it is even fair to say, are rarely—related to fully established science; they much more commonly concern emerging science and new technology” (p. 144; see also Callon et al., 2009; Ravetz, 1997). Science-related issues therefore fall squarely in the domain of public discourse and rhetoric, domains developed specifically to handle the need for public decisions in the face of uncertainty.

Fourth and finally, the deficit model misunderstands the use knowledge, as it assumes that the meaning of scientific knowledge remains the same when that knowledge moves from the expert to the public domains. We see this in the deficit model belief that to know science is to love it and that, therefore, lack of love (or at least lack of assent) reflects lack of knowledge (Davies, 2008a; Meyer, 2016). However, even where reliable facts are available, it is problematic to assume, as deficit-based approaches do, that people will come to the same conclusions and act in the same ways if they have the same facts. In reality, greater knowledge can lead to more disagreement (Bauer et al., 2007) and disagreement often arises from causes other than differences in knowledge (e.g. Eden, 1996; Nisbet and Scheufele, 2009; Priest, 2013). The bottom line is that people don’t all act the same way given the same information; sometimes more knowledge leads to more disagreement (Bauer, Allum, and Miller, 2007, p. 84). Furthermore, decisions are based on far more than information; they also involve “values, political context, and necessary trade-offs between costs, benefits, and risks” (Nisbet and Scheufele, 2009, p. 1768). When publics debate about science-related issues, they consider many factors, not just scientific knowledge (Priest, 2013).

Because of its erroneous assumptions, deficit-model communication makes three common mistakes. First, because deficit model communication misunderstands what people need to know to make sound decisions, it fails to meet the real information needs or to address the real concerns of audiences, whether in personal contexts (Goldenberg, 2016), professional contexts (Szymanski, 2016), or political contexts (Ceccarelli, 2011). Second, because it emphasizes a blind faith in scientists and scientific institutions, deficit model communication also leaves issues vulnerable to manufactured controversy (Ceccarelli, 2011; Priest, 2013). Finally, science communication that fails to take publics’ opinions and values into account leads to an erosion of public trust (Besley, 2010; Caulfield and Ogbogu, 2015; Wynne, 2006).

Deliberative model

In recognition of the deficit model’s problems, and seeking a way to value public discourse, a deliberative model shifts from “a didactic category of science teaching” to “a political category of public discussion of science-related public affairs” (Meyer, 2016, p. 434, emphasis original). The deliberative model assumes that publics are capable of self-governance when science-related matters are involved. Thus, where the deficit model relies on scientists to offer solutions, the deliberative model emphasizes plurality, and the importance of accessing multiple forms of knowledge, and including multiple perspectives and values, to address science-related issues in public. Where the deficit model sees scientific literacy as “awareness of a collection of important scientific facts” (Priest, 2013, p. 138), and makes such knowledge a prerequisite for involvement in discussions about science-related subjects, the deliberative model seeks an approach “in which science is placed within its societal contexts, and does not constitute a goal in itself” (Fourez, 1997, p. 927). It does this in order to foster “a political category of science communication, accommodating discussion among politically equal citizens on science-related practical-political issues” (Meyer, 2016, p. 443).

It is important to emphasize, as Meyer (2016) does, that scientists and scientific expertise plays a vital role in the deliberative model: “Different from but not hostile to didactic science communication, it would be aimed at integrating natural and social-scientific knowledge claims and concerns into the wider context of societal practice” (p. 443). A deliberative approach values scientific information, while at the same time also valuing the processes in which “the citizen ideally acts in the public sphere as a moral agent, judges the ends of policies as well as their instruments, and exercises prudence and persuasion to make decisions in a field of uncertainty” (Brown, 1998, p. 3). The overall picture is of scientists and others coming together in public forums to discuss issues of common interest. Toward this end, deliberative communication contributes to the quality of multi-faceted discussions in the agora, a space in which people with different interests, experiences, and kinds of expertise come together to, as Gross says, work on “creating and coming to terms with a common future” (1994, p. 5).

We can see signs of this in some work. Perrault (2013) describes a deliberative model, one focused on developing critical understandings of science in public; she illustrates it with positive examples, some written by scientists. Druschke et al. (2018) describe a communication training program that challenges the deficit model and teaches graduate student scientists to focus on writing that engages with audiences as co-producers of knowledge and understanding. Similarly Davies (2008a), in addition to finding numerous instances of deficit-model talk among scientists, also identifies some positive counter-narratives as scientists talk about publics in ways that recognize their diversity (i.e. not presenting the public as a homogeneous group) and their agency. This extends not only to publics’ abilities to engage intelligently with specific scientific issues, but also includes “talk about the public which depicts them as generally having valuable knowledge in the form of perspective” (2008a, p. 23). Respect for publics also appears in a later study, in which Davies (2013) identifies reasons people do public engagement work, including scientists’ suggesting that engagement can lead to “more participatory models of engagement and, accordingly, the notion that public engagement could result in better research” (p. 697). As these examples show, a deliberative model posits capable, intelligent publics whose interactions around science-related issues work to the betterment of society broadly and of sciences too.

Ethos

As the previous sections show, each of the overarching models can be understood in a variety of ways. For this study, I operationalize them in terms of ethos since that offers a way to trace the presence of “overarching themes of separation and identification” (Davies, 2008a, p. 32). In simple terms, ethos is about credibility (Cherry, 1998). Credibility, however, is not universal but contextual, determined according to community standards; thus “[t]o have ethos is to manifest the virtues most valued by the culture to and for which one speaks” (Halloran, 1982, p. 60). However, scientists engaging in public communication are members of two communities simultaneously—the specialist scientific community, and the broader community of civil society—and each community has different requirements for a communicator’s ethos.

When scientists speak to and for fellow scientists, they are expected to use a technical ethos, one suitable to the “closed-world discourse” (Miller, 2004, p. 205) of the specialist domains in which it is understood “that expert knowledge produces progress, that mechanization improves expertise, that expertise implies authority, that expert authority convinces the rational” (p. 202). This ethos developed in conjunction with the scientific communities that use it and is appropriate for that context. In public contexts, in contrast, what is needed is a relational ethos, one oriented toward respectful interaction between the many “vernacular voices” in the “reticulate public sphere” (Hauser, 1999, p. xi) of civil society. Each ethos—technical and relational—is appropriate in its own context.

The problem is that technical ethos tends to be extended beyond technical domains, where it suffices, to public domains, where it does not. When a technical ethos moves out of a specialist and into a public domain, we see the kind of deficit communication Meyer (2016) described, the “overall didactic enterprise aimed at a knowledge-deficient general public,” an enterprise in which the “roles of (mature) citizen and (immature) pupil are confused” and “Political disagreement easily comes to be seen as the expression of inadequate knowledge” (p. 433). In other words, what works as a technical ethos in a technical sphere becomes a different kind of ethos—what I will call didactic ethos—when extended into the public context. As Brown explains, the “habits of objectivity, value neutrality, and rational calculation, when expanded to all spheres of human praxis, eliminate the practical and ideational bases of a shared ethical ontology, vocabulary, or tradition, the existence of or at least the search for which is central to democratic culture” (Brown, 1998, p. 4). Thus, a didactic ethos undermines democracy not because it offers technical knowledge, but because it does so in a way that “explicitly eschews the deliberative rhetoric through which, since Aristotle, citizens were said to prudently conduct their civic life” (Brown, 1998, p. 5). A didactic ethos is manifestation of the deficit model in public science communication.

To resolve the problems of the deficit model and move toward a relational model requires a relational ethos that connects values, all the ways of knowing and valuing that are part of the public sphere. It does not eschew scientific and technological values, but rather works to “see technological language in a broader context” in order to “place the scientific tenet of objectivity in another perspective” (Enos, 1989, p. 99 and p.100). It seeks seek to promote “[c]onsensus building rather than hierarchical command” and “[i]nclusionary rather than exclusionary strategies” to create “cooperation and collective action” (Enos, 1989, p. 107) in the shared world of the agora.

In sum

Overall, this section has elaborated on the two models of public science communication—deficit and deliberative—and used existing research to show how each manifests in scientists’ discourses about public engagement. It also suggested that each model could be understood in terms of ethos. Specifically, it explained that while technical ethos works in specialist domains, when the communication norms and values of the technical ethos are carried into the public domain they become a didactic ethos, one that works against the norms and values of deliberative discourse.

Study Design

The research cited in the background section shows that many scientists think science communication fits into the deficit model. While it offers some glimpses of deliberative-model thinking, especially in Davies’ research on how scientists talk about public engagement, overall it shows a strong orientation toward a didactic rather than a relational ethos. Suggestive as the cited studies are, it is not clear how representative they are, as each is either small scale, or focused in a particular area of research.

To better understand how scientists view engagement beyond their specialist communities, I conducted a descriptive study that asked two questions related to public engagement:

To what extent do scientists refer to about communication beyond their own research communities? Answering this will help us know if they value the activity itself.
To what extent do scientists present public-oriented activities in deficit versus deliberative terms? Answering this will help identify what they think the goals of public science communication are.

Study Texts

To answer these questions, I examined abstracts from successful NSF funding proposals, all funded in the same call (the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or ARRA). I chose to focus on NSF proposals for two reasons.

First, NSF’s size ensures a large data set. Since its founding in 1950, the NSF has been the premier public granting agency for non-medical science in the United States. With a current budget of more than $7 billion per year, NSF receives 42,000 proposals each year and funds just under 25%. Because of NSF’s size, the funded projects from the 2009 ARRA call yielded 4,861 abstracts.

Second, NSF explicitly requires proposals to address what it calls the “Broader Impacts” of the research. NSF has two overarching criteria for evaluating funding proposals: Intellectual Merit, which “encompasses the potential to advance knowledge” and Broader Impacts, which “encompasses the potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal outcomes” (National Science Foundation, 2013). Thus, the Intellectual Merit Criterion (also called the “IMC” and “criterion 1”) has to do with the scientific quality of and likelihood of success with the proposed research, while the Broader Impacts Criterion (“BIC” or “criterion 2”) has to do with NSF’s educational, economic, and social goals. Although many scientists associate the BIC with a mandate to say how their research will benefit society, the requirement can be met through many kinds of activities. In 2009, NSF offered additional types of activities that met the BIC requirement: improving education, broadening the participation of underrepresented groups, enhancing infrastructure for research and education, and disseminating results broadly. Although NSF got rid of these formal categories in 2012 (Kamenetzky 2013), the kinds of activities they described continue to be priorities for NSF.

Because a proposal can address the BIC by including one or more activities in one or more of these areas, what researchers choose to include says a lot about their interests, abilities, and/or values. For example, looking at 296 abstracts from NSF funded projects related to ecosystem sciences, Nadkarni and Stasch (2013) found that 65% included Broader Impacts activities, but that “for ecosystem ecologists, the broader impacts initiatives that NSF currently acknowledges and rewards are mainly focused on activities that scientists traditionally conduct anyway” (p. 17). Overall, because the BIC requires grant applicants to say something about the effects of their work beyond the lab or field, NSF proposals are an especially rich resource for examining how scientists conceptualize the role of science beyond its disciplinary communities. To the extent that they choose to meet the BIC via public-facing activities, looking at how they write about these activities offers a way to find out how they view public engagement.

The study corpus consists of all abstracts from successful NSF proposals submitted in response to a call for proposals funded via the ARRA. Using abstracts from the ARRA ensured the study set would include many fields. Since “Research suggests that the cultures of scientific disciplines can be very different” (Davies, 2008a, p. 416), examining all areas of NSF-funded research provides a macro-level view not available in smaller studies that concentrate on one or a few fields or subfields. The 4,861 abstracts span all research areas in the eight NSF directorates, thus ensuring findings represent a variety of scientific communities. Drawing from NSF abstracts also avoids the problem of focusing too much on controversy rather than routine communication (Davies 2008a). Finally, the abstracts cover all funding levels, from NSF’s category “A” (under $50,000) through their category “E” (over $1,000,000). This mean the set includes projects with budgets ranging from $14,976 for a dissertation on “Functional Genetics and Parasite Community Ecology in a Keystone Species” (NSF Award #0910310) to $1,155,685 for “SNM GOALI: Carbon Nanotube Superfiber to Revolutionize Engineering Designs” (NSF Award #1120382). This ensures that findings are not skewed in favor of a particular funding level.

To acquire the abstracts, I used the NSF Search Award function (from http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/simpleSearch.jsp) to search for “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” (active and inactive) and downloaded all the results (4,861 abstracts).

For question 2, I used theoretical sampling (Corbin and Strauss, 2008, p. 195) to identify abstracts that referred to the public or publics as civic entities (rather than as objects of study). This involved two steps:

Searching for “public” and iteratively creating an exclusions list for uses of “public” as a modifier for some other topic (e.g. public health, public education, public service).
Importing these cases into a new project file, and manually identifying and removing cases not excluded during step 1 (e.g. a case that referred to “public transportation”).

Coding

To find out how scientists valued dissemination compared to other Broader Impact activities, I imported the 4,861 abstracts into the qualitative data analysis program QDA Miner. I developed codes based on the following NSF categories:

TTL = How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training and learning?

URM = How well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of underrepresented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability, geographic, etc.)?

IRE = To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks and partnerships?

DIS = Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding?

BEN = What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?

For each category, I did three steps:

compiled a list of search terms from Peter March’s (2007) letter about the BIC and from the NSF’s 2009 grant proposal guide,
brainstormed and looked up synonyms (e.g. via online dictionaries), and
iteratively added synonyms and new search terms that I noticed as I searched and coded in QDA Miner.

Coding for question 2 took place in two stages. In stage one, I did a rough coding of “one way” or “interactive,” where “one way” meant publics were presented as receiving information, and “interactive” meant they were seen as receiving and responding to information, or as being involved in knowledge production. These corresponded to the didactic and relational ethos.

For example, cases coded as “one-way” say things like “All metric data and the generated 3D digital models of most specimens will be available via a public online database…” (NSF Award #1316947, emphasis added) or “the results will be presented to both academic and general audiences through a combination of public lectures, professional presentations, and peer-reviewed publications. (NSF Award #1309751, emphasis added). These sentences describe how information or findings will be made available to publics, with no reference to how publics might be able to respond.

Cases coded as “interactive” indicate an understanding of publics as active and involved, with their own motives, ideas, or knowledges. For example, one case specifically mentions “introductory physics classes, public lectures and open discussions with the public” (NSF Award #0844908, emphasis added), and another says that “Participation in PAMM NET will be open to the public” (NSF Award #1340058, emphasis added). Two cases offer an illustrative #contrast, as one (NSF Award #1309751) says “results will be presented to… general audiences” via lectures, but the other (NSF Award #0844908) mentions lectures and then adds “and open discussions with the public.” The first is didactic, while the second moves beyond a didactic ethos (lectures) to offer a relational ethos in saying it will “open discussions with the public.”

While categorizing sentences as one way versus interactive, I started seeing particular kinds of public engagement, and I created more specific codes for those. At the end of this process, I had six codes:

Disseminate/Make available
Educate
Entice Interact
Outreach
Public Discourse

In the second stage of coding, I read and re-read each of the 520 abstracts in its entirety, applying these codes.

Table 1 shows how I operationalized each category and includes one or two example sentences for each:

Category	Operationalization	Example
Disseminate/make available	Results, findings, materials, or other outcomes will be made available or disseminated to publics, or will be presented, shared, or communicated in public forums.	All results will be made available via English and Spanish publications in peer-reviewed journals and online for public use. (NSF Award #1143568) The main findings will also be disseminated to the general public. (NSF Award #0937987)
Educate	Publics will learn information or come to better understand a topic or phenomenon; public literacy will increase.	These efforts will seek to improve public understanding of science, archaeology, and anthropology. (NSF Award #1136516) The public will be served through a series of free short courses and lectures on energy issues. (NSF Award #0846533) The broader public will also be educated through direct involvement with new television and film productions of National Geographic. (NSF Award #0938047)
Entice	Publics will become interested in, attracted to, excited about, or supportive of science. Science is something to be excited about, or as a spectacle.	This […] family public education program will excite future generations about scientific understanding of the world, and will utilize some of the knowledge, instruments and models applied in the research portion of this project. (NSF Award #0840191) The CAREER project integrates next-generation molecular genetics with an aggressive education strategy to prepare students and professionals in genomics and to communicate the importance of science to the public. (NSF Award #0845314)
Interact	Researchers will interact with members of the public or with communities. Members of the public or communities participate in research activities.	Finally, this research project will foster relationships and collaborations with descendant Meskwaki, Menominee, and Ho-Chunk community members in the Midwest. (NSF Award #1321751) The Institute provides much-needed training in linguistics and in research methods in order to facilitate community-driven research and revitalization. (NSF Award #1160685)
Outreach	“Outreach” is mentioned.	The study region encompasses large segments of Alabama where Auburn University has ongoing outreach activities. (NSF Award #0911687) The lead scientists have responsibilities for public outreach and will extend results to forest ecologists, arborists and urban foresters. (NSF Award #1346258)
Public Discourse	Research will contribute to public discussions about a science-related issue, placing agency with the publics rather than exclusively with scientists.	Finally, this project will help to reframe public and academic debates about immigrants and citizenship and to move such debates beyond perennial concerns with immigrants’ language skills and rates of naturalization. (NSF Award #1021666) Research will contribute to public discussions about a science-related issue, placing agency with the publics rather than exclusively with scientists. Finally, this project will help to reframe public and academic debates about immigrants and citizenship and to move such debates beyond perennial concerns with immigrants’ language skills and rates of naturalization. (NSF Award #1021666)

Table 1. Operationalizing codes (emphases added)

Each sentence was coded for all relevant categories, resulting in some sentences with two or three codes. For example, the following sentence was coded as “Entice,” “Outreach,” and “Educate”:

The project will include undergraduate and graduate researchers, and will produce spectacular visualizations that will be used for public outreach and education in cosmology. (NSF Award #0832614)

Results

Results for Question 1: Abstracts Value Public-Facing Work

Question 1 asked to what extent scientists mention engaging in communication beyond their own research communities (not including recruitment, which is about potential members of the research community). To answer this, I used QDA Miner to (1) code keywords associated with seven categories of broader impacts activities and (2) tally the number and percentage of cases that mention each category. In this stage, I looked at all 4,681 cases. This process revealed that almost 44.2% (2,149 cases) of the abstracts mention some kind of activity that involves engaging beyond the research community (see Table 2). “Dissemination” is the second-most common category after “Infrastructure for Research & Education” at 74.5% (3623 cases). It was notably more common than references to including under-represented minorities (32.3%) or to educational activities (31.7%), and more than six times as frequent as “benefits to society” (6.7%).

	Total # of cases	% of cases
Infrastructure for Research & Education	3623	74.5
Dissemination	2149	44.2
Under-Represented Minorities	1571	32.3
Teaching/Training/Learning	1542	31.7
Benefits to Society	330	6.7

Table 2. References to broader impact activities

This result suggests that many scientists are interested in some form of communication that reaches beyond their own research communities and student populations. It contrasts with Nadkarni and Stasch’s (2013) finding that scientists mostly listed as the broader impact activities the things that they were already doing (e.g. teaching and training), and is more similar to Roberts’ (2009) finding that 37% of NSF abstracts include dissemination activities. Since DISS has not traditionally been part of scientists’ work, the fact that 44.2% of proposers chose to include it suggests that scientists are less averse to public-facing activities than is generally believed.

Results for Question 2: Abstracts Mainly Contain Didactic Ethos

While the level of interest in dissemination found by question 1 could indicate a positive shift, if scientists’ views of engagement are rooted in a deficit model, it may not be so positive after all. Question 2 therefore asked to what extent scientists conceptualize public-oriented activities in deficit versus deliberative terms. To answer this I analyzed a subset of abstracts that make direct references to publics, a total of 520 studies.

Within those cases, there was broad variation by purpose (see Table 3). References to disseminating or making findings available are most common, appearing in 60.6% of subset (315 cases). Next most common are education references, which appear in 41.5% of the subset (216 cases). Generic references to “outreach” appear in 36.9% of the subset (192 cases). “Entice” appears in 12.9% of the subset (67 cases). References to interaction appear in 11.0% of the subset (57 cases). Finally, references to public discourse appear in 2.9% of the subset (15 cases)

Category	# of cases	% of cases
Available/disseminate	315	60.6
Educate	216	41.5
Outreach	192	36.9
Entice	67	12.9
Interact	57	11
Public Discourse	15	2.9

Table 3. How scientists represent the goals of public communication

Characteristic Examples

Examples of a didactic ethos

A didactic ethos appears in nearly all cases (494 cases, or 95%). The following examples illustrate different ways a didactic ethos shows up in abstracts.

First, there are cases that offer to remedy a lack of interest in or attention to science. In one case, which describes an examination of “the laser-peening processes of BMGs,” the scientists were confident that their work will “increase the public awareness of the advanced laser processing and bulk-metallic-glass materials, and their scientific importance” (NSF Award #0900271, emphasis added). The didactic mission is to help publics see and value the scientists research the way that scientists themselves see and value it.

Second, some cases focus on education, offering to alleviate a perceived lack of scientific literacy, such as the one which proposed “to develop a novel label-free spectral optical technique and instrument for advanced histopathologic examination of tissue and cellular samples,” described some educational benefits for students, and also promised to “help to increase the scientific literacy of the public by outreach activities” (NSF Award #1256001). Other cases with an education aim say they will remedy a lack of knowledge about very specific areas. For example, one case, says that “Because worms in Jell-O have already captured the interest of the general public, broad dissemination of these results should enhance scientific understanding of the mechanics of worm burrowing in sediments, and related topics. In collaboration with Scripps Communications, the public information office of SIO, a video podcast about this research will be produced” (NSF Award #1029160). These cases illustrate the didactic belief that publics are insufficiently knowledgeable about science, so much so that any education on a scientific topic—whether on “advanced histopathologic examination of tissue and cellular samples” or on “the mechanics of worm burrowing in sediments”—will alleviate their lack.

Third, in some cases a didactic ethos works to remedy a lack of positive regard, as the abstracts state public relations goals of changing public sentiment toward a specific area of research. For example, one proposes creating theatrical plays that “are intended to generate greater awareness of and good will toward physics among the general public” (NSF Award #0844827) while another promises that “Students of various ages and the general public will gain a greater appreciation of how diverse fields interact to produce high impact engineering research on the fundamental assembly mechanisms of protein-based materials” (NSF Award #0847070). In these cases, the implied aim of much deficit-model communication—to improve sciences’ public image—is made explicit.

Whether aiming to change what publics know about science or how publics view scientific research, each of these cases illustrates how a deficit orientation toward science communication is reflected in a didactic ethos. They are characterized by the assumption that the research being done is inherently interesting, important, and relevant to non-specialists’ lives. It is important to remember that the researchers who wrote these proposals did not have to choose communication-related activities to meet the BIC requirement. Other categories were available, including those related to teaching, to increasing participation of underrepresented groups, and to improving or enhancing infrastructure for research or for education. These cases’ representations of publics are therefore not the response of researchers required to say something about public engagement. Rather, they reflect the researchers’ choice to present public-facing activities as necessary and valuable.

Examples of a relational ethos

The examples discussed here show various ways the deliberative model appears via a relational ethos in a minority of the abstracts (69 cases, or 13.3%).

First, some cases connect the research to public interests or needs. For example, one says that after conducting research on “the effectives of the 100-year floodplain in predicting property damages from floods” and developing “improved criteria for assessing risk of inundation in low-lying coastal areas,” the researchers would “deliver findings that can be easily accessed and understood by both public officials and local residents” in order to “ensure the research findings assist local governments and individual households on how to better reduce the negative impacts of coastal flooding in the US” (NSF Award #1129998). This case shows an awareness that scientific #research is being used to meet public, not just scientific, needs; the value of the work is partly in how it can assist publics in solving a problem.

Second, some cases acknowledge that publics have something to contribute to a research endeavor. A proposal on “Digitization TCN Collaborative Research: North American Lichens and Bryophytes: Sensitive Indicators of Environmental Quality and Change” positions publics as active and respected participants in its work. The overall goal of the project is “to provide high quality data to address how species distributions change as a result of major environmental events across time and space.” Regarding Broader Impacts, the abstract states that:

New, on-line digitization techniques will be made publically available at http://symbiota.org/nalichens/ and http://symbiota.org/bryophytes/, and will allow interested members of the public to be involved and learn about biodiversity alongside the professionals. Availability of nearly the entire North American bryophyte and lichen collections on-line will greatly accelerate knowledge and evaluation of the biodiversity of these organisms by fostering collaborations between professionals and the general public. (NSF Award #1115105)

The abstract shows a relational ethos via awareness that “publics are a complex and heterogeneous set of actors and relations that arise from particular contexts,” it positions “interested members” as co-creators of knowledge, and it positions scientists as people who are learning alongside those interested members of the public.

Third, some cases describe collaboration with publics. The first example explains how researchers studying American Indian Sign Language are working collaboratively with community members to hold a conference:

All phases of the Conference will involve collaboration with members of Native American signing communities to document the geographic spread, domains of use, and linguistic status of AISL, currently classified as an endangered language. Sign language linguists, anthropologists, and scholars specializing in documentary linguistic fieldwork will be invited to also participate. (NSF Award #1160604)

It is notable that community members are central to the project, while “sign language linguists, anthropologists, and scholars” are portrayed as extra participants, a reversal (in the case of anthropologists and scholars) of the usual priority. Here the line of demarcation is not between scientists and non-scientists, but rather between those who have a close interest in the research (scientists and community members) and those who do not, including some academics.

Another case with a public-oriented relational ethos looks at issues related to “ecosystem services in the urban environment” and ways that “their management may create disservices that cause other environmental problems or unanticipated socioeconomic impacts.” As part of their research looking at “water management and water consumption associated with the urban forest and outdoor landscaping in the city of Los Angeles,” the “Project scientists will collaborate in annual public seminars with non-profits and other groups that are addressing watershed health and runoff (intimately related to urban landscaping and water consumption)” (NSF Award #0948914) The implication here is that the public groups have relevant knowledge too.

These cases demonstrate the value of a deliberative model as they show ways that scientists can use a relational ethos to recognize, join, and help create “deliberative contexts in which a variety of stakeholders can participate in a dialog so that a plurality of views can inform research priorities and science policy” (Bubela et al., 2009, p. 515).

Discussion & Conclusion

This article opens with a problem: Despite decades of work by science communicators, science communication scholars, and scientists, public science writing remains trapped in a deficit model approach. A deficit approach extends the values and norms of scientific domains into the public sphere, and in the process undermines the civic discourse necessary to a deliberative democracy. Sociologist Michael (1992) sums up Lyotard’s point that in science “the sender speaks the truth and the addressee assents validity” (p. 315). In deficit model science writing, scientific expertise is expressed in a didactic ethos that lacks the relational elements of ethos essential to deliberative discourse. Instead, it asserts that unless an addressee is a fellow scientist, the addressee doesn’t have the right or training to “assent validity,” even about the role of sciences and research programs in civil society.

The findings described here demonstrate that while NSF-funded researchers are interested in public-facing activities, they overwhelmingly characterize those activities in deficit terms. The dearth of cases showing a relational ethos indicates that if scientific communities are to meet the calls for “communicating with the public rather than at the public on scientific research” (National Science Foundation, 2010b, p. 4), scientific culture must change. Granted, the research also shows that some change is already under way. Bucchi (2013) notes that “during the past few decades science communication efforts aimed at non-expert audiences have increased in quantity and intensity on a global scale” (p. 904), an observation borne out by the fact that nearly half of NSF abstracts mention public-facing activities as a goal. However, Bucchi also argues that “quality is a relevant issue and challenge for contemporary science communication” (p. 904), a point also confirmed by this study. While it is heartening that some change has begun, the time has come to move from being pleased that scientists are doing public communication at all, and to start focusing on the quality. The few examples with a relational ethos point toward potential ways to achieve that quality in public science communication.

To achieve that quality, much work is required at all levels. The study reported here builds on earlier work that identifies particular stances that scientists take toward public communication. It adds to what we know about how scientists view public engagement, painting a more thorough picture of the problem space within which various interests are trying to shift science communication practices toward more deliberative, civics-oriented approaches. The article also demonstrates the usefulness of examining NSF abstracts; because of the Broader Impacts Criterion, NSF proposals offer a unique opportunity to see how scientists situate their work in broader social, economic, or pedagogical contexts.

That said, this study has a few limitations that, while necessary given the scale of the inquiry, suggest areas for further research. First, this study is tied to one national context. Since “moves to engagement are … tied to projects of citizenship and national identity” (Davies 2013, p. 702), its findings may not generalize well to other contexts. Second, this is a static picture, a cross-section at one moment, and a longitudinal study could offer insights about trends. Third, looking at thousands of abstracts left no opportunities to see how these texts are written in their contexts of production, an important consideration for understanding the complex decisions that lie behind each proposal.

The results presented here also suggest further avenues of research, especially those taking a qualitative approach. For example, it would be interesting to examine how BIC plans were implemented. The BIC statements reflect how people describe public engagement when talking to fellow experts. A useful follow-up study could look at whether and how these activities were implemented. It is also interesting that none of the examples of relational ethos come from physical sciences; nearly all the cases identified as belonging to a deliberative model are in social sciences, or relate to topics that affect people in their everyday lives (e.g. medical or ecological topics). On the one hand, this is not surprising and aligns with what others (Davies 2008a; Roberts 2009) have found. On the other hand, it could be that some researchers in physical sciences are doing deliberative work that was obscured by this study’s focus on abstracts. Research into BIC implementation could reveal some interesting counter-examples in these areas.

Finally, a closer look at the relational ethos in anomalous cases may reveal more paths forward. Smagorinsky (2008) notes that if “a person or subset of people perform anomalously, they often merit attention, particularly if they share traits as members of some sort of minority group relative to the whole” (p. 398). Studying the exceptional cases could offer insights into why those researchers defy the norm and see publics as interlocutors rather than as passive audiences. These insights could in turn help “to empower ongoing reflexive thought about practice, both about science and within it…” (Priest, 2013, p. 144They also could help us, as researchers interested in the quality of public discourse more broadly, to identify and promote characteristics of these minority discourses in our interdisciplinary work and in our classrooms.

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Biography

Sarah Tinker Perrault teaches Rhetoric and Writing and directs the Writing Intensive Curriculum Program at Oregon State University. Her research focuses on science writing and on writing pedagogy, with an emphasis on Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC). In addition to her book Communicating Popular Science: From Deficit to Democracy (Palgrave Macmillan), she has published articles in a range of journals, including Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, Composition Studies, Information Design Journal, and Perspectives in Biology & Medicine.

Technoculture Volume 12 (2022)