This is a 50 minute talk from my plenary speech at Foundations and Frontiers of Physics Education Research (FFPER) at Puget Sound in 2011. I connect the research and best practices of science communication to our work with faculty to help them use and learn about research based instructional strategies.

1. Getting the word out
Effective Communication of the
Results of Our Work in PER
What’s working, what we ought to
know, and what we need to do better
Stephanie Chasteen
University of Colorado @ Boulder
Illustration: Tom Tomorrow
1

2. Audio: David Kestenbaum &
Marvin Marshak: Neutrinos
2
Here’s a slightly different view of a face. Here is that same image right-side up. I hardly need to
tell you, we are tuned to understand things that are familiar. Faces are familiar to us right-side-up.
We don’t notice that there is something weird about it when it’s in this unfamiliar place. So, it’s
always important to use familiar things to help people understand something new. We know that,
we’re educators. So I want to play you a piece from the radio that does this really well, with
something that certainly isn’t familiar to most people. I want you to listen to this, and listen
especially for how he ties it to the familiar and makes us want to keep listening. What does this
piece of radio have to do with science education?
This is really scaffolding, just in communication form -- start where people are at. Here is an
excellent example of scaffolding with something familiar to get to something really unfamiliar.
Notice the nice use of metaphor and analogy as well.

3. My points for today
Good communication is important
We can learn from the science
communication field
But more is needed
3

4. The earth is warming
Americans who believe
that there is solid
evidence of climate
change: 57%
Those who believe that
it’s caused by human
activity
36%
Denver commuters
who don’t drive alone!
31%
Data: IPCC, Opinion Research Corporation
4

5. Student-centered instruction
helps students learn
traditional lecture! interactive engagement!
Physicists who are
0.6
aware of 3 or more
RBIS’s
0.5
68%
Fraction of Courses
fraction of
courses ! 0.4
0.3
0.2
Those who use at least
one RBIS
0.1
49%
0
0.08 0.14 0.20 0.26 0.32 0.38 0.44 0.50 0.56 0.62 0.68
normalized learning gain! Users of “peer
less learning more learning! instruction” who
include peer
Hake, “A 6,000 student study....”, AJP 66, 1998
Dancy & Henderson, “Pedagogical Practices and instructional change of instruction
faculty,” AJP 78(10), 2010.
Henderson & Dancy, “Impact of PER on the teaching of introductory 27%
qualitative physics in the US,” PRST-PER, 5, 020107, 2009.
5
We have a similar problem to climate change scientists -- we have data that we think should effect
behavior change, but that doesn’t happen.

6. traditional lecture! interactive engagement!
0.6
0.5 How can we get our
Fraction of Courses
fraction of
0.4
message across
courses !
0.3
0.2
0.1
and enable behavior change?
0
0.08 0.14 0.20 0.26 0.32 0.38 0.44 0.50 0.56 0.62 0.68
normalized learning gain!
less learning more learning!
climate
change
neutrinos
6
Neutrinos:
- message and information that we want to convey.
- but no action required
Climate change
-we want people to act based on this information. We want to persuade people.
- Both issues are both cultural and scientific. So, apt analogy.
- But unlike climate science, we don’t have an active skeptic campaign
- The ways to communicate well, and how this can lead to action, are all part of the science
communication literature. Why do Americans keep buying SUV’s when they know about climate
change? Why aren’t we taking advantage of this literature? They are struggling with many of the
same things that we are.

7. a success story
Wong & McMurray, Framing communication: Communicating the antismoking
Image by Tomasz Sienicki message effectively to all smokers. J. of Community Psychology, 30(4) (2002).
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Successful mass media campaign
scientific information --> fewer smokers start, more qit
Large number of people (rather than individual doctors)
Progress to be made (24% smoke)
Get message out PLUS investigate how smokers respond to information
Those with desire to quit vs those with no intention to quit
Gain vs loss: “quitting smoking will reduce your risk of lung cancer” or a loss, “not quitting smoking
will increase your risk of lung cancer.”
Positive frame --> those thinking about quitting
Negative frame --> spur those not thinking about to action.
Implications for PER. We should be drawing on lit.
And of course behavioral economics. Not that talk. Want to see that talk.

8. first, an outline of
communication
media & scientists
messenger
message
information
attitudes & beliefs audience
public
behavior
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Message: We often want to get engagement in terms of information, emotion, and behavior
Receiver = public, policy makers
physics teachers, policy makers, other researchers

9. Model 1: scientific literacy
(1960-1980’s)
media & scientists
let’s educate that
ignorant public
message
information
public
Bauer, Allum and Miller, “What can we learn from 25 years of PUS
survey research?” Public Understanding of Science, 16, 2007.
9
They recognized that there was a real lack of understanding of science among the public
So we undertook scientific literacy campaigns.

10. the deficit model
science
“The deficit model assumes that
the public are empty vessels
waiting to be filled with useful
information upon which they
will rationally act.”
Nerlich, Koteyko, and Brown, “Theory and language of climate
change communication,” Wiley Interdisciplinary reviews, 1, 2010.
10
We know model = transmissionist.
Usually use when talk about why lecture ineffective
Sci-com = “deficit model”
And I argue we do this in PER, but
We know that people make choices for irrational reasons, but we keep trying to convince people
with rational data.
But (a) people’s heads aren’t empty, so information transfer doesn’t work, and
(b) people’s decisions aren’t rational.
There are several books about how we decide, based on cognitive psychology and behavioral
economics. I think we can learn from this literature, but behavioral economics isn’t really what I
want to talk about today.
Rather, the deficit model doesn’t work because (a) people aren’t blank slates, and (b) once they
are informed, that information doesn’t necessarily lead to action. Information on its own isn’t
persuasive. That’s the behavioral economics piece.

11. there is a deficit model in PER
“Typically, dissemination involves informing the faculty of the
research-based innovation, convincing them of the need for the
innovation, and providing them with new curricular materials.
Although this model is intuitive, it is not based on data and has not
been shown to be effective” ‐ Dancy & Henderson RBIS & pedagogy
Literature review (Henderson et al.; N=100)
Example ideas of this mode:
“Disseminating pedagogy •“faculty typically lack knowledge about
& curriculum” student-centered instruction”
•“change takes time, we need to be patient”
30% of all articles •“Once faculty are convinced, they’ll share
with their colleagues.”
~50% of all SER
Dancy & Henderson, “Pedagogical Practices and instructional change of faculty,” AJP 78(10), 2010.
Henderson, Beach & Finkelstein, “Four Categories of Change Strategies...” Transitions and Transgressions in Learning &
Education, accepted.
11
We do this in PER. “If I just had 30 minutes of their time, they would understand.”
Or, as Dancy says,
- Develop and disseminate curriculum
- Expect change
- Wonder why change didn’t happen
- Blame faculty
- Repeat
Henderson and others did a systematic literature review in the DBER, faculty develoment, and higher
education literature. Ignoring the others, SER is pretty much PER. This was definitely one of the
dominant modes of communication in SER. The types of ideas expressed in these articles show that
we’re still fairly stuck in the dissemination mode in our communications, at least in written form.
Not entirely, but wait for that.
We need to get out of this dissemination mode.

12. Model 2: public understanding
of science
(1985-1990’s)
media & scientists the public is
insufficiently “in
love” with STEM
message
information
attitudes & beliefs public
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They recognized that a lot of the problem wasn’t that the public didn’t know much about science,
but that they had a bad attitude. The public is insufficiently “in love” with STEM. So, they wanted
not just to educate, but to seduce the public. The more information they have, the more they’ll
agree with the experts. THe problem is, research shows that this isn’t true -- there isn’t a
good correlation between attitudes and knowledge.
Plus, this is schizophrenic. a deficient public can’t be trusted.

13. is there an attitude
problem towards PER?
13
We feel that there is a negative attitude towards PER and that we have to convince faculty that we
are on their side.
But the data doesn’t seem to support this. It may be that 20 years ago, faculty felt negatively
towards PER. And maybe the old guard still does. But Henderson, Dancy and Turpen’s recent data
shows that -- overall -- faculty are bought-in to PER based methods, and believe that more
interactivity is important.
Do we not trust faculty, like the media and policy makers didn’t trust the public? Do we see faculty
as deficient?

14. Model 3: science & society
(mid-1990’s to present)
media & scientists we should educate
them, and let them
participate
message
the scientists’
& media
attitudes are information
the problem emotion public
behavior
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We have the problem. THe public is being alienated by our prejudices.
We have to determine what their interests are, and hear their concerns. We should let them
participate in policy decisions. There is a movement towards dialogue and discussion, such as with
community forums and science cafe’s.
For example, GM foods there was a lot of public outcry. So with nanotech they created discussion
forums. The jury is still out on whether the dialogue part is helpful.
But what we know is helpful is paying attention to our audience and what they need. After all,
this is what worked in education, right? We researched student difficulties and gave education
based on what we know they struggle with.

15. but why bother?
conceptual change is hard
what can an article or a talk do?
create awareness
expose to new ideas
plant a seed
inspire
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We know how hard conceptual change is. Many instructors know about RBIS methods, but few
use them, or use them properly.
We need to work with departments on institutional structures, create sustained workshops that,
over time, help instructors to reflect upon and transform their teaching. So, why bother to think
about how we communicate in these articles and talks and other communication modes?
Well, I went to what I consider the Carl Sagan of PER. He’s been tremendously successful in
getting some of our key messages across. This talk alone has been given about 400 times, and he
sometimes gives is 2 or 3 times a week. So I asked him. Why bother spending all this time and
energy doing what he does, giving talks and lectures?
So, the communication can help create awareness. And this works. When Dancy interviewed
physics faculty, she found that many of them try PI because they hear Mazur talk and get excited to
try it. They first find out about the method through a talk or a colleague, and then turn to written
materials to learn more. So, this works. And because it’s worked, we need to keep doing it, but
doing it even better.
Think of Brian Greene’s Elegant Universe on PBS. DId that create a new generation of string
theorists? No, that’s what’s called “edutainment”. It inspires and motivates. These people know how
to do this well.

16. Let’s focus on PER communication
messenger
PER
•credible
•trustworthy
•similar
message
•who are they?
•affects message
•needs research
physics teachers
audience
16
OK, so now I hope I’ve convinced you that there are a lot of similarities between science
communication and PER communication.
So I’ll talk now for a little bit about what makes effective communication, and how that relates to
PER. And how we need to do better.
Messenger: This is our first hurdle. We could be seen as biased. This is why we’re so lucky to have
Mazur. He’s seen as credible, friendly. He’s a Harvard prof. He started out like most instructors.
He’s like a better version of every physics teacher, yet he’s not stuck up, he’s funny. He’s a great
messenger. We can learn from him to be seen as trusted messengers.
Audience:Physicists (open or closed). Media. Policy makers. Climate change has done a lot of
work surveying the public and finding out perceptions, then tailoring communication. Are they
skeptical of social science? If so, in what way? Create research based brochures or talking points.
Research-based communication. Let’s focus on talking to other physicists for now. This is a big
area that needs research. What do physicists need from our communication? What are their ideas
and beliefs? What do they struggle with in implementation? This is a huge area of research that is
needed, and I’ll come back to this. But if we at least know more about our audience, we can provide
a more targeted message. That is really the two-way part of communication -- finding out
about our audience, just like we find out about our students in order to hone our education.

17. 3
keep it know your
key
simple audience
points
metaphors,
make it
message analogy,
relevant
examples
build
no tell a
from
jargon story
familiar
17
I’m going to go over some aspects of effective messages quickly, because you know these things
already.

18. These should seem familiar...
People have prior knowledge & beliefs
Scaffold understanding
Motivation is important to learning
Don’t exceed cognitive load
Make it relevant / connect to everyday life
Respect learners
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But these shouldn’t be too surprising, you should see a lot of parallels with what we do.
THis is just education translated into a mostly one-way form.

19. stories are so
message
important
Audio: Christopher Joyce and William Eberhard, A Spider’s Web
Image: Luc Viatour, www.lucnix.be
19
Every master communicator knows the power of storytelling.
We are very tuned into narrative, this is how we understand the world.
Stories make it personal, and make us care, tapping into the emotional side of things. They
help concretize data in experience. And, perhaps more importantly, stories give us a framework or
a mental model on which to hang our understanding and memory.
Here’s an example of a story from veteran reporter Christopher Joyce of NPR.
You’re going to remember this science better,
he sets us up to understand what the wasp is doing to the spider, by creating a mystery. This
is the story of a study.
Mazur is expert at this. I asked Mazur why he thinks his talks are so successful.
Tell story of his demos. .
Joyce + Mazur = inspire curiousity. Setting up a study so we’re curious to hear the results will do
a lot to keep our attention during the rest of hte talk.
Why do people want to hear his talk in person? A lot of communication research has found that in
person communication is more impactful than media. Dancy, Henderson and Turpen also found
that social contacts were most important (in person or face to face) for someone to try an
innovation.

20. message prior beliefs
Why do faculty try peer instruction?
• Evidence of effectiveness from
personal experience
• Dissatisfied with traditional lecture
• It’s important for students to be
actively engaged
- Dancy, Henderson & Turpen faculty interviews, analysis in progress
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Faculty are trying things that sound like good ideas because of their prior beliefs about what good
teaching is.
We need more information about those prior ideas so that we can fit our messages in with
those beliefs and mental models. . We want to cue productive mental models with our
communication
In fact, a lot of the successful communications in our field are probably successful because they do
fit with these previous models.
Q: What are physics teachers mental models?

21. “Many scientists believe...”
message
“A threat worse than terrorism”
“What Would Jesus Drive”
framing
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The words we choose and the ideas we highlight help the audience to interpret our information.
It also helps to tap into certain types of mental models.
And it influences the persuasiveness of the message.
Anti-climate = doubt.
“threat worse than terrorism” frames it as a violent issue
“What would Jesus Drive” is a campaign that frames environmentalism as a religious, stewardship
issue
THe frame that is most effective will depend on your audience.
And I just want to remind you of the smoking example I used before. This is a great example of
framing an issue -- smoking is framed as a health issue, as a social problem, as dirty. And this
completely changed the way that the population viewed smoking. And of course, that positive
or negative frame is also a frame.
The way we frame our messages changes the persuasiveness of our message.
Q: What are the frames that we have used?

22. but... is data &
message information important?
“Knowledge is Power ”
‐ Francis Bacon
Corollary:
Lack of Knowledge is lack of power
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The deficit model doesn’t work so... do we want to include information? To include data? Yes, of
course we do. Our message still includes facts and information. We don’t want to be all “spin”, but
rather to provide some information so we can have informed conversations with faculty.
BUT, data backs up our arguments, is not an argument in itself.

23. message what role does data have?
bottom line
scientist
model
background
key details
(data)
supporting
details (data) back-
ground
results & conclusions journalist
model
23
But the question is ... what role data plays. Where we bring it in. As scientists, we generally give
the background to our field, give some supporting details about our study, and build up to the
grand finale -- the results.
Journalists follow the opposite structure. They start with the bottom line, the so what. Then they’ll
provide some important supporting details.
Now, I’m not saying that this is how we should give our colloquia. But I think it’s something to
keep in mind

24. “Data does not appear to be a convincing
factor but is used to justify using the
innovation to others”
- Dancy, Henderson & Turpen, in progress
24

25. So....We can create
messages to get faculty
excited about using PER
techniques
BUT
Almost half of faculty use an RBIS for only semester
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Mazur is incredibly effective at getting our message out because he’s a good communicator and
uses these principles of good communication.
And data indicates that this type of communication has been relatively successful in getting the
word out.
People get fired up when they hear Mazur talk, and they want to go out and try his ideas. We can do
this locally.
BUT . Faculty report knowing about RBIS’s but most don’t use them, or stop using them. Almost
half stop using an RBIS after one semester. 30% of users stop using peer instruction. 50% stop
using cooperative group problem solving.
Faculty get fired up when they hear Mazur talk, but then they go out and try to implement it
and it all goes to hell.
Getting a faculty to use your technique isn’t the end of the story.

26. what goes wrong?
we need to know & communicate about
the challenges of implementation
image from http://www.pandemiclabs.com/blog/viral-marketing/does-your-advertising-agency-get-it/
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Faculty decide to use something, it doesn’t work, and they blame themselves or blame the
method.
But run into difficulties and challenges
We need more information about how to implement something in a local context
We need to study secondary implementations to know what faculty come up against
We need more informaation about what challenges people face in implementation
And then we need to communicate about those challenges as part of our message
Maybe we’re afraid that they won’t try the technique if we tell them there might be challenges. But
getting someone to try something doesn’t seem to be the big hurdle. It’s getting them to keep
using it.

27. So, it is important to
communicate well.
But we don’t just
need to repeat our
message louder
1. Our message is incomplete
2. And we need more than just a message
27
Why aren’t things working? We typically think, well, we need a better website, or more workshops.
But that’s assuming that our message hasn’t gotten across. To some degree, it has. Faculty are
bought into the idea of interactive engagement. They know about hte strategy. They have
knowledge and beliefs about these strategies. What’s missing?
one is that our message is incomplete. As I said, we need to include the challenges and common
difficulties as part of our message.

28. there is a time for telling
but we need deeper engagement to change ideas
image from http://www.seniorsworldchronicle.com/2009/08/usa-professors-john-baldwin-68-and.html
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Just like there is a time for lecturing to students, there is a time for communicating via messages,
for conveying information, as we have been doing.
But just like with students, if we want to change ideas, we need some room for deeper
engagement.

29. The next generation of PER-
Communication
follow-up
PER
communities
message
me
policy physicists
29
Just like science communication finally realized that they needed to engage the public more
deeply in science through science cafe’s, etc, so do we need to find our next generation of
communication.
Provide ongoing support structures
Create follow-up opportunities. One-shot PD doesn’t work -- effective PD includes opportunities
to continue to engage, to share problems and solutions, and get assistance in implementation.
Build communities that help new users -- professional learning communities and communities of
practice (CAE, modeling, teacher institute)
And of course the other contextual factor is policy. Departmental support and encouragement is a
big factor in people trying something new, by Dancy data.
Plus, instructors don’t know when what they are doing is working or not. We all know the
importance of feedback in changing student behavior. Faculty also need meaningful data, and
student evaluations aren’t it. Providing meaningful evaluation measures on student learning is a
key policy change.

30. we don’t need to speak louder.
we need to speak better.
1.We should consult the research in
science communication and behavior
economics to find how it relates to PER.
2.Developing effective communication
strategies for specific audiences is
important in getting the PER messages
across.
3.We need to broaden our message to
include implementation challenges and
go beyond communication to create
communities and support structures for
PER-reform efforts
30
1. health campaigns, climate change, and other science communication has information that we
need. Why not consult with experts in those fields to write white papers for our practitioners?
2. We need more audience research and more development of effective messages and talking
points for our community. What works? What speaks to people? What can we glean from the
communication literature to more effectively hone our messages and become excellent
communicators?
3. People have gotten the message that PER exists, and that interactive engagement is good, and
we need to now focus our message on implementation. How can others get the gains that
developers have? We need research to inform this message, and we also need to form structures -
like modeling or CAE - that give teachers a safe “home” where they can work on their practice.
We don’t just need to speak louder. We need to speak better.
PER is a leader in science education research. If we begin to do research-based
communication to fully communicate our message, do it well, and to use that communication
to draw people into a broader support structure, we can lead the SER community in this
important work.

31. Thank you!
Upcoming:
Learning About Teaching Physics.
PERTG-funded podcast on PER for teachers.
Check http://blog.sciencegeekgirl.com.
I’m interviewing at FFPERPS! Come talk to
me. Upcoming podcasts on lecture demos, PI,
is lecture evil? and how tests help you learn
Many thanks to Melissa Dancy for useful discussions, to both Dancy
& Henderson for their valuable work, and to the PER group at CU-
Boulder, and my many mentors in science communication including
those at the Exploratorium & NPR (particularly Paul Doherty,
David Kestenbaum & Richard Harris).
31

32. dialogue model in PER
“Instead of making them feel...to adopt research
innovations because the researchers know best, these
instructors would like the [PER] community to literature survey
recognize that they have valuable experiences and
expertise and work with them to improve teaching and
learning ”
teaching is context-dependent and
sample ideas
adaptation is necessary you are
here
time & effort are required to change
instruction
we are advisors, and respect the expertise
of teachers
Dancy & Henderson, “Pedagogical Practices and instructional change of faculty,” AJP
78(10), 2010.
Henderson, Beach & Finkelstien, “Four Categories of Change Strategies...” Transitions and
Transgressions in Learning & Education, accepted.
32
We are moving in this direction in PER and it only took us 20 years instead of 40.