Public Understanding of Science: A Literature Review

In April 2001, the Museum of Science in Boston launched the Current Science & Technology Center, an effort to address leading edge research for school and public audiences and to provide depth and context for science and technology stories in the news within a museum context and through various outreach methods. The Museum of Science (MOS), in collaboration with the Institute for Learning Innovation (Institute), has initiated a multi-year evaluation effort designed to support the Current Science & Technology Center and its Health Science Education Partnership through (1) the monitoring and evaluation of CS&T’s several modes of education and outreach; (2) the establishment of a baseline understanding of how a consortium of research organizations working with a major science museum can help facilitate public interest in and understanding of research and stimulate further learning and dialogue, and (3) a comprehensive assessment of the efficacy of the the CS&T project as a whole, and the HSEP partnership in particular. The Institute for Learning Innovation (Institute), an Annapolis MD-based non-profit educational research organization, was contracted to provide evaluation services in support of the CS&T project across multiple years. The first phase of evaluation focused on establishing a baseline related to the public’s understanding of science and research and a survey of the current “state of the art” in techniques for presenting current research to the public . To that end, the Institute for Learning Innovation conducted this in-depth literature review, with the aim of (1) identifying where and how people learn science and technology related concepts, as well as factors that influence the public’s interests and attitudes toward science and technology (2) providing some general sense of the public’s level of scientific literacy, primarily in the health and life sciences, and (3) reviewing other existing science-center based attempts to inform public and K-12 audiences on current research. Ultimately, Institute researchers were able to derive general recommendations on ways to present current scientific information to a general interest audience.