Pulsar: A Science Podcast Formative Evaluation Findings

Pulsar: A Science Podcast is a science and technology podcast produced by the Museum of Science, Boston. The podcast has grown and expanded in recent months as the museum turned its attention to developing online resources during the coronavirus pandemic. This evaluation seeks to understand the ways the Pulsar team may improve their product in order to better suit listeners’ preferences and to expand the podcast’s reach.

This evaluation is grounded in two primary objectives: (1) describing the podcast’s current audience and (2) understanding factors that impact listeners’ engagement with the podcast. Our evaluation utilized three main instruments — surveys, interviews, and analysis of podcast analytics — to achieve these goals. Though a lack of data from current Pulsar listeners forced our team to focus on the second objective, we made several interesting discoveries about the podcast’s strengths and elements of the podcast that could be improved:

• Pulsar succeeds in reaching listeners near and far, with listeners residing in nearly all 50 states and numerous other nations.
• The podcast caters to varying interests, making Pulsar appealing to a wide audience.
• Episodes make science education interesting and approachable, motivating listeners to learn more and allowing non-experts to understand complex topics.
• Listeners are not necessarily more interested in visiting the museum, perhaps meaning the creators should focus more on advertising museum attractions.
• The podcast could do more to appeal to listeners who like longer runtimes, perhaps by making tweaks to the website.
• The Pulsar team could build listenership in other countries and regions utilizing interviews with experts from these places.