Stand up for Science: Practical Approaches to Discussing Science that Matters

Information about Craig Smith

What is your name, title, and role at the University of Michigan?

My name is Craig Smith; I’m a child development researcher at the University of Michigan Center for Human Growth and Development, and I’m the founder and coordinator of the University of Michigan Living Lab Program. The Living Lab Program brings social science researchers (including me!) into informal education spaces like the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, the UM Museum of Natural History, and the Ann Arbor District Library on a weekly basis. Conducting our actual studies in these spaces allows the public to participate in science and talk with scientists about new research, and it allows undergrads, doctoral students, postdocs, and professors to gain important skills in translating hypotheses, methods, and findings for a very interested general audience.

Craig Smith on Audience

Who do you interact with when working in education and/or outreach?  What makes this audience different from other groups that you might interact with?

Living Lab researchers interact with adult and child visitors at the Hands-On Museum, the Museum of Natural History, and the Ann Arbor District Library. These are the very people who participate in our developmental studies, but they are often kept out of the loop when it comes to hearing the details about our hypotheses, methods, and findings. Although Living Lab researchers still publish and present in professional venues, while in the Living Lab we make the general public – and our research participants – the focus of our educational interactions.

What suggestions do you have for making interactions with educators, learners, and/or lay-audiences as effective as possible?

All researchers who conduct their studies in the Living Lab Program take part in a training on how to make their science-related interactions with the public as effective and enjoyable as possible. We focus on avoiding discipline-specific jargon, connecting research questions to real-life concerns, encouraging people to ask questions, and having fun getting people to join in the process of hypothesizing.

What is the biggest challenge you face when trying to work with educators, learners, and/or lay-audiences? What is the biggest reward?

One challenge we face is getting a very large group of students, postdocs, and faculty members equally and fully excited about not only running their studies in public spaces, but engaging in mutually-beneficial educational interactions about their research with the public. Relatedly, a huge reward is seeing researchers become skilled science communicators, and seeing both the researchers and the members of the community become excited and inspired by their interactions with each other.

What are you trying to accomplish when you write to or speak with educators, learners, and/or lay-audiences?

Our goal is to expose members of the community to a form of science they often don’t see firsthand, even in science-focused museums like the Hands-On Museum and the Museum of Natural History. Social science studies are often quite creative and exciting to see in person – especially those involving questions about child development and parenting. We hope community members will leave their interactions with scientists feeling more curious about themselves and their children, more inspired to participate in science-related activities, and more familiar with the way that social scientists approach the study of complex questions about cognition and behavior.

Craig Smith on Messaging

When you’re planning to interact with educators, learners, and/or lay-audiences, how do you decide what you want to focus on? If a scientist wanted a single idea to “stick” in the mind of an educator, learner, or lay-audience member, what advice would you give them as to how best to shape/pitch that idea? 

Our starting point in our interactions with community members is the particular study that is being conducted in the community-based lab on a specific day. The study can stimulate a rich conversation that centers on specific ideas about child development; these are often ideas that are exciting and personally-relevant to community members in the museum and library settings. However, a key goal is to stretch the conversation to get people thinking about the process of science itself and how fascinating questions about cognition, behavior, and development can be tested. The goal is start with an aspect of the study that a community member may find exciting, interesting, or even confusing, and build the conversation from there.

Craig Smith on Narrative

Do you use stories or narratives as a tool to communicate with educators, learners, and/or lay-audiences? If so, what kinds of narratives?

Much of the research we do in our museum- and library-based labs is focused on child development, so stories about children and parenting are often central to the connections our researchers/educators make with community members. Typically a parent will relate a story about their child when making an observation/asking a question about the study that is being conducted on a particular day. This gives the researcher an exciting opportunity to connect the research to something real and meaningful in that parent’s life, and parents often leave such exchanges feeling truly interested in the science being conducted. Further, such exchanges are of great benefit to researchers, whose next set of research questions may be informed by the kinds of stories parents share about their children’s thinking and behavior.

What kinds of documents or presentations are most effective at capturing and maintaining a educators’, learners’, and/or lay-audiences’ attention? Would you mind providing a few examples (both “good” and “bad”) of the same kind of document or presentation?

Our main focus is on face-to-face educational interactions with community members in our museum- and library-based labs. These interactions can be incredibly successful at engaging community members in topics related to child development and social science, but they can also fall flat. Success often depends on getting a community member (e.g., the parent of a child participant) to make connections to the research that are meaningful to them:

• Example of a successful interaction related to a study on children’s desire forecasting: 
• Researcher: “Thanks so much for helping out with our research today. As you could probably tell, we’re interested in how children predict what they’ll want in the future. And the kind of mistakes they sometimes make when doing that. I bet you can think of times when you have conversations about that kind of stuff at home!”
• Parent: “Yeah. Today I gave up on trying to convince her to bring her coat, even though she’ll be cold later when we’re downtown.”
• Researcher: “Funny!  And that’s exactly the kind of thing we’re interested in.”
• Parent: “So what’s the secret?”
• Researcher: “Well, we’re trying to figure out if there is one! One thing we’re doing is testing how open children are to hearing input that contradicts their own intuitions about their future selves. So in this study, we made your child thirsty, and then we had you tell her that she’ll want pretzels later. That’s not something that thirsty kids – or even adults – tend to believe, even though it’s true.”
• Parent: “So what are you trying to figure out?  If she’ll believe me?”
• Researcher: “We’re testing whether certain types of input from parents help kids make more accurate predictions about their future selves. So it’s actually an experiment in which you were randomly assigned to say one type of thing, and other parents are assigned to say different things to their kids. This allows us to test our hypotheses about which type of input will help kids get past the errors they make when thinking about their future selves.”
• Parent: “So what’s the most effective?”
• Researcher: “We haven’t analyzed all of the data yet. When we do have results you can find them on the Living Lab website. But we do have a prediction. We think that very simple parent input like ‘You will want pretzels later’ won’t be very effective, because children’s thinking about their future selves will be heavily influenced by their current stare of thirst.”
• Parent: “That makes sense.”
• Researcher: “But some parents are assigned to say something that addresses the passage of time. Like, ‘You’re thirsty now, but soon you’ll have water.’  This helps kids think of something that they tend to overlook when they’re very thirsty.”
• Parent: “Have you thought of doing this about school issues?  I’m a teacher and some kids have a hard time anticipating what they’ll need later in the day or week.”
• Researcher: “I love that idea. What kinds of things do you see….”

• Example of a failed interaction related to a study on children’s desire forecasting:
• Researcher: “Thanks so much for helping out with our research today. Here’s a debriefing form with more information about our experiment. Today we’re investigating children’s willingness to use testimony from others when engaging in mental state forecasting. Please let me know if you have any questions.”
• Parent takes form: “Okay, thanks.”