Search for: All records

Communication strategies define audience-specific behavioral goals, identify priority cognitive and affective communication objectives necessary to achieving those goals, and propose specific communication tactics meant to increase the likelihood of achieving those objectives. Unfortunately, it appears that few scientific organizations have concrete, evidence-based strategies. This study therefore uses survey data to explore environmental scientists’ willingness to prioritize the behavioral goal of creating a shared public engagement strategy. It finds that the best predictor of prioritizing strategy development is the perceived benefits of having a strategy. The perceived feasibility of developing a strategy given available resources, and trust in their engagement staff were also reasonable predictors of strategy prioritization. Early career respondents and those who said they had previously thought about developing an engagement strategy were also more likely to say they think developing an engagement strategy should be prioritized. The study builds on the strategic communication as planned behavior approach to try to better understand scientists’ communication choices in a way that could support efforts to improve these choices. 

This study uses survey data to explore ecologists’ willingness to prioritize the behavioral goal of considering local community members’ perspectives in the context of research at Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites. It finds that believing in the benefits of such listening is a relatively strong statistical predictor of expressing a willingness to prioritize listening. Neither normative beliefs nor agency beliefs were strong correlates of prioritizing listening. Women and younger scientists were more willing to prioritize listening as a goal. The study builds on the “strategic science communication as planned behavior” approach to try to better understand scientists’ communication choices.