Who Are You Writing for? Differences in Response to Blog Design Between Scientists and Nonscientists

Abstract

Science blogs have been advocated as potential mediators between science and nonscientist readers; however, they are mostly read by other scientists, with little research on how blogs can be made more appealing for nonscientists. We compared four possible treatments of a science blog post (text-only, humor, images and video). Nonscientists recalled more information when images were included compared to humor, while scientists performed worse with text-only than with video. Nonscientists enjoyed the images treatment most, while scientists preferred the video treatment. Adding images to blog posts is recommended as an easy method of increasing recall and enjoyment among readers.

Keywords

blogging recall audience public engagement with science

Introduction

Science blogs have been defined as blogs whose topic is scientific more than half the time (Coturnix, 2006; Ranger & Bultitude, 2016). This gives them considerable diversity: Some science blogs are dedicated to discussing new research, others set out to debunk science myths, and some describe life as a scientist. Science blogs are written by scientists, journalists, teachers, students, undergraduates, freelancers, and amateur science writers (Bonetta, 2007; Jarreau, 2015b; Masters, 2013), but working scientists are the most common authors, with a significant proportion of science bloggers having PhDs (Jarreau, 2015b; Mahrt & Puschmann, 2014, Shema, Bar-Ilan, & Thelwell, 2012).

Science blogs have been advocated as a means to make science more accessible (Schmidt, 2008). As Wilkins (2008) wrote, “Unlike laws and sausages, the public should see science during its manufacture, but the lay public is generally ill-equipped to interpret what they see, and science bloggers play a crucial role” (p. 411). Therefore, other authors (e.g., Schmidt, 2008; Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002; Tola, 2008; Wilkins, 2008) have advocated for blogs’ potential, as a means for science to be mediated between the “ivory tower” and the interested lay public. Tola (2008) suggests, “Blogs dramatically change the order of magnitude of this informal conversation between scientists and open it to non-specialists and to anyone interested in the field, even if it is someone not belonging to any scientific community” (p. 1). However, very little research has investigated if blogs are successful in the role of mediators.

Bloggers report a range of motivations, but it is common for science bloggers to self-identify as mediators between science and the public (Jarreau, 2015b; Mahrt & Puschmann, 2014). Mahrt and Puschmann (2014, p. 6) interviewed 44 science bloggers and found that for 67%, presenting their discipline “to the public” was the second major motivation for beginning their blog (the first being a fondness for writing). Furthermore, more than 80% intended their science blog to be read by anybody in the general public interested in the topic. Similarly, when Jarreau (2015b, p. 11) surveyed 600 science bloggers to investigate their self-perception of the role, she found they most frequently reported acting as science “explainers,” translating science for nonspecialist readers. Research bloggers working in Antarctica were even more explicit about this goal, often specifically targeting schools and teachers; one researcher stated that blogging allowed her to grasp the “powerful tool that writing is for educating the public” (Thorsen, 2013, p. 96).

A thorough investigation of the readers of science blogs has only recently been conducted; Jarreau and Porter (2017) surveyed almost 3,000 science blog readers and found roughly half were over 40. Science blog readers were more commonly men (60%), and the vast majority lived in the United States (58%), the United Kingdom (11%), and Canada (6%). The location data of readers are consistent with that of most science bloggers (Mewburn & Thomson, 2013), suggesting science blogs are predominantly written and read in wealthy, English-speaking Western countries. Most readers had some association with science, with only 23% indicating they were not currently pursuing a scientific career, had not previously, and were not planning to in the future (Jarreau & Porter, 2017). Jarreau and Porter’s (2017) study supports earlier findings that the majority of science blog readers are other scientists, although previous insights into the readership of science blogs were often gained through an analysis of the comments section (Kouper, 2010; Shanahan, 2011). Kouper (2010, p. 6) analyzed 1,409 comments from 11 science blogs and concluded, “Those readers who engage in commenting are almost always associated with science one way or another.” When the science blogger Ed Yong posted the question “Who are you?” on his Not Exactly Rocket Science blog, the comments indicated an audience that was young to middle-aged, and highly educated, most often in science (Shanahan, 2011; Yong, 2013).

This suggests that, despite bloggers’ best intentions to act as explainers of science, few nonscientist readers are engaging with science blogs. Given that most people are interested in science (Falk, Storksdieck, & Dierking, 2007) and access science online (National Science Board, 2016), it would appear that a potential audience exists but is unaware of or unengaged with science blogs. It has been suggested that blog design elements may influence the type of audience recruited (e.g., Chen & Behm-Morawitz, 2017; Ranger & Bultitude, 2016), and research on online news sites shows that website design can influence readers’ engagement and information retention (Pipps, Walter, Endres, & Tabatcher, 2009; Sundar, 2000).

Science bloggers state that they intentionally make use of design elements such as colloquial language, images, and video to attempt to appeal to their readers (Jarreau, 2015a; Ranger & Bultitude, 2016), although they still use fewer images and videos compared to blogs on other topics (Mahrt & Puschmann, 2014; Ranger & Bultitude, 2016) and there is little direct evidence that these strategies are effective for science blogs anyway. For example, science bloggers frequently use humor to make a point or engage the reader (Jarreau, 2015a; Kouper, 2010; Luzon, 2013; Mahrt & Puschmann, 2014), although an extensive review of humor’s effect on education in general revealed mixed results (Banas, Dunbar, Rodriguez, & Liu, 2011). The addition of images is known to increase the recall of material compared to text-only or text + video variations for online news articles (Sundar, 2000) and educational materials (Mayer, 2003), but this is yet to be demonstrated for science blogs.

In our research, we surveyed both scientists and nonscientists to gauge their information retention after reading a science blog post that incorporated images, video, or humor. This work contributes to the small existing pool of information on science blogs, particularly regarding their writers’ aspiration to be mediators of science for nonscientist readers. It also provides evidence-based suggestions for science bloggers who want to use their science blog to help disseminate scientific information to a wider audience (Mahrt & Puschmann, 2014) and who most frequently perceive themselves as science explainers and educators (Jarreau, 2015b; Thorsen, 2013).

Method

This study was approved by the University of Western Australia’s human ethics office (Reference No. RA/4/1/8387). We recruited participants online through posts on the first author’s social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, and Wordpress blog) and by inviting friends, colleagues, and organizations to share the study information, in common with the snowball method used in similar studies (Kornejeva, 2012; Mewburn & Thomson, 2013). We advertised the study across a diverse range of groups (particularly on Facebook), including a women’s advice group, a writers group, and a range of university faculty groups.

The participants were randomly allocated to one of four blog post treatments (see below). The post was written—and adapted for each treatment—by the first author. All four treatments featured the same information on the social structure of kookaburra families (an Australian bird). This topic was chosen because it is highly specific and consequently a topic of which participants, whether highly educated in science or not, would probably have little or no previous knowledge. However, to confirm we were testing their recall of new information, we asked a set of five pretest questions about kookaburras generally and on their social structure. The participants read the post (and viewed video content if assigned the video treatment) and then took a postreading test survey immediately afterward to test their recall of the information. The postreading test used an entirely different question set to the prereading test to avoid priming effects, where participants use pretest questions to direct their reading of the text because they are conscious of being tested (Spyridakis & Wenger, 1991).

The pre- and postreading tests were conducted using an online survey created in Survey Gizmo (https://app.surveygizmo.com).

The blog post treatments were as follows:

Text-only: This post contained information on kookaburra social structure, presented only as text. The post’s writing style used techniques widely agreed to be suitable for nonacademic audiences: minimal jargon and use of metaphors, similes, and colloquial language (Kornejeva, 2012; Ranger & Bultitude, 2016).

Humor: This post contained exactly the same information as the Text-only post but included humor. The type of humor used was relatable, that is, humor that helps make connections, for example, participants laughing over a familiar experience, which has previously been shown to aid increased engagement on engineering blogs (Kedrowicz & Sullivan, 2012). The Text-only and Humor blog posts were piloted with postgraduate science communication students (n = 10) to ensure the Humor treatment was considerably more humorous than the Text-only post. The two posts were rated on two 7-point semantic differential scales, and the Humor treatment was rated as more lighthearted (4.8 vs. 4.6) and funnier (4.6 vs. 3.2) than text-only.

Images: This post was exactly the same as the Text-only post but with the addition of two images with simple captions. The first image is a wide photo of two kookaburras sitting on a pole, the second a close-up photo of a kookaburra on a fence. Both photos were taken by the first author.

Video: This post was exactly the same text as the Text-only post but included a video. The video included footage of kookaburras and an on-screen presenter (the first author) stating some, but not all, of the information from the blog post.

At the conclusion of the study the images treatment was made publicly available (it can be viewed at https://oddorganisms.com/2016/11/02/complex-kookaburra-families-disobedient-children-and-divorce/).

After reading the allocated blog post participants were asked for their highest science qualification and if they currently worked in a science-based job. From this information we categorized the participants into “scientist” and “nonscientist” participants. Scientist participants were those with any formal science qualification, from a bachelor’s degree or TAFE certificate (an Australian vocational tertiary education qualification) up to a PhD, or who were currently working in a science-based career. For example, a participant who had no science qualification but currently worked as a communications manager in science education was categorized as a scientist. Nonscientist participants were those with no science qualifications or work experience.

Participants’ previous experience with science blogs was explored by asking how often (if ever) they read science blogs. Responses were coded as never (they had never previously visited a science blog), occasional (reading science blogs monthly to yearly), or frequent (reading weekly or daily).

Participants were asked to record their enjoyment of the sample blog post by dragging a counter between 0 and 100, where 0 meant they did not enjoy the post at all and 100 meant they thoroughly enjoyed the post and thought it could not be improved.

To investigate information recall from the blog post, the seven postreading test questions were a mix of multiple-choice and short-answer questions, as per the methodology of Sundar (2000), who conducted a similar study on the recall of information from online news articles. Questions ranged from asking participants to recall a fact mentioned in the post, for example, “Up to how many offspring can be helping their parents in a kookaburra family?” to more complex questions that required participants to think about the blog post as a whole, for example, “What is the advantage of kookaburras having daughters?” All of the answers were coded as being either correct or incorrect for analysis.

To investigate any significant differences between the scientist and nonscientist participants, the data were analyzed using SPSS. Frequency of reading science blogs was compared using chi-square test and Kruskal–Wallis tests, while all other data were analyzed using Mann–Whitney U tests. Mann–Whitney U is the nonparametric equivalent of the t test and, while slightly less powerful, is less likely to give a false significant result (Dytham, 1999). Consequently, it is the preferred test for investigating differences in nonparametric data (Dytham, 1999). Where appropriate, the effect size (r) is also provided (Cohen, 1988). The effect size indicates the size of the difference between groups, with r < .2 considered a weak effect and r > .5 a strong effect (Pallant, 2011).

Results

Participants

We received 172 partial responses and 445 complete responses to the survey. Only the complete responses were used in data analysis. Participants were predominantly from Australia (n = 340), followed by the United States (n = 45), the United Kingdom (n = 25), Canada (n = 15), and other countries (n = 20). Of the 445 participants, 288 were categorized as scientists and 157 as nonscientists. The number of scientist and nonscientist participants in each treatment varied slightly due to the random allocation and removal of partial responses (Table 1).

Table 1.

The Number of Nonscientist and Scientist Participants Randomly Allocated Between Four Treatments of a Science Blog Post.

Treatment	No. of nonscientist participants	No. of scientist participants	Total
Text-only	37	70	107
Humor	34	69	103
Images	53	84	137
Video	33	65	98
Total	157	288	445

The vast majority of participants performed poorly in the prereading test, with 82% scoring two or less out of five. Only two participants scored 5 out of 5 and only 15 participants scored 4 out of 5, confirming a low level of prior knowledge on the topic. There was no difference on prereading test score between scientists (averaging 1.75 out of 5) and nonscientists (averaging 1.77 out of 5).

Recall

Postreading test scores were consistently high across all four treatments, with participants having an overall average recall of 5.67 out of 7 (SD = 1.46); two thirds (66.4%) scored either a 6 or 7. Across all participants there were no significant differences between treatments (p > .05, text-only M = 5.51, SD = 1.52; humor M = 5.57, SD = 1.46; images M = 5.74, SD = 1.48; video M = 5.86, SD = 1.35).

Scientist participants scored more highly on recall in all four treatments and did significantly better overall, scoring 5.86 out of 7 on average (SD = 1.31), while nonscientist participants scored an average of 5.33 (SD = 1.65, U = 18467, p = .001, r = −.16).

Within the groups (scientists and nonscientists) there were significant differences in recall between treatments. For nonscientist participants the humor treatment (M = 5, SD = 1.48) produced significantly lower average recall than the images treatment (Figure 1A, M = 4.47, SD = 1.86, U = 679.5, p = .048, r = −.21). For scientist participants, the text-only treatment (M = 5.61, SD = 1.49) performed significantly worse than the video treatment (Figure 1B, M = 6.06, SD = 1.27, U = 1797.5, p = .027, r = −.19). There were no significant relationships between recall and experience or enjoyment, overall or by treatment or science background.

Figure 1.

Average score on postreading test for (A) nonscientists and (B) scientists.

Enjoyment

Across all treatments participants seemed to enjoy the blog post, scoring it an average of 75.73 out of 100 (SD = 18.8); 75.1% of participants rated their enjoyment at 70 or higher. The Images treatment scored the highest average enjoyment and was enjoyed significantly more than both the Text-only treatment, which was scored lowest (U = 6126, p = .028, r = −.14) and the Humor treatment, which was scored second lowest (U = 6008, p = .049, r = −.13).

Nonscientist participants scored the Images treatment as the highest average enjoyment (Figure 2A), scoring it significantly higher than both the Text-only (U = 575.5, p = .001, r = −.35) and Video treatments (U = 589.5, p = .011, r = −.27). Scientist participants gave the Video treatment the highest average enjoyment score (Figure 2B), scoring it significantly higher than the Humor treatment, which they enjoyed least (U = 1757.5, p = .031, r = −.19). Enjoyment was not related to experience reading blogs.

Figure 2.

Average enjoyment of blog post for (A) nonscientists and (B) scientists.

Experience

Most participants had read a science blog before. Over half of participants identified as occasional readers of science blogs (57.88%), 26.8% read science blogs frequently (daily or weekly), and 15.32% had never read a science blog. Experience differed between the two groups of participants (p > .001, Cramer’s V = 0.0289): Nonscientists were more likely to have never read a science blog (24.8% vs. 10.1%), while scientists were more likely to state they read science blogs frequently (35.2% vs. 11.5%).

Discussion

Science bloggers frequently perceive themselves to be science explainers or civic educators (Jarreau, 2015b; Thorsen, 2013). Our study suggests that science blogs certainly have the potential to fulfil this goal: Participants showed a high level of information retention after reading a blog post. However, although science bloggers may aspire to reach nonscientists (Jarreau, 2015b; Mahrt & Puschmann, 2014), we found nonscientists were less likely to have previously read science blogs compared to scientists, in line with earlier research (Jarreau & Porter, 2017; Kouper, 2010).

Our results demonstrate that the design of a science blog post can affect recall and enjoyment differently in scientist and nonscientist participants. Compared to a Text-only blog, scientists performed significantly better in response to the Video treatment, whereas nonscientists performed better on the Images treatment. This is consistent with the educational literature on dual-coding theory (J. M. Clark & Paivio, 1991), which shows that adding images or videos to textual content improves comprehension and learning (Mayer, 2003).

We found that the Images treatment was enjoyed more and increased recall among nonscientists compared to the text treatment and was not significantly different to the other treatments for scientists. In their analysis of 10 highly popular science blogs, Ranger and Bultitude (2016) found that only 56% of science blog posts incorporated images (compared to 68% of blog posts on nonscientific topics), and science bloggers frequently considered images to be inessential. Photos are a relatively cheap and easy addition to blog posts, so we would encourage science bloggers to make use of them, especially if they have mixed audiences of scientist and nonscientist groups (e.g., Veletsianos & Shaw, 2017).

Prior studies have reported that videos result in lower recall compared to text or image treatments (Pipps et al., 2009; Sundar, 2000). However, we found no significant differences in recall between images and video treatments for either scientists or nonscientists. The social context has changed considerably since Pipps et al. (2009) and Sundar’s (2000) work; participants are now likely to be more familiar with online reading and therefore less susceptible to cognitive overload when videos are included as part of online information. Videos are used infrequently, in only 12% of science blog posts (Ranger & Bultitude, 2016). Our results showed the Video treatment was equal to Images for increasing recall but took longer to create and was rated less enjoyable than images for nonscientists.

That both scientists and nonscientists responded better to a multimedia treatment (Image or Video) than Text-only is to be expected given that making connections between words and images generally increases deeper learning (J. M. Clark & Paivio, 1991; Mayer, 2003). However, learning is mediated by experience: Learners who are less experienced at using multimedia can experience cognitive overload when trying to incorporate different channels of information (De Jong, 2010; Kalyuga, Chandler, & Sweller, 2000). Differences in prior experiences may therefore explain the different responses to blog design between scientist and nonscientist groups. For example, university science students and lecturers typically have different learning styles (Parpala, Lindblom-Ylänne, Komulainen, Litmanen, & Hirsto, 2010) and preferences for teaching methods (Buzzard, Crittenden, Crittenden, & McCarty, 2011) to other disciplines.

The effect of humor followed the pattern of mixed results from education studies (Banas et al., 2011). The humor treatment had the lowest recall for nonscientists, and scientists reported the Humor treatment to be slightly less enjoyable. There may be other benefits to using humor that were not identified in this research; for example, humor is thought to help foster inclusive communities; those who “get the joke” (Riesch, 2014) and have a sense of community can encourage engagement on blogs (Baumer, Sueyoshi, & Tomlinson, 2011; Kedrowicz & Sullivan, 2012). The study may also have been too short to find positive impacts of humor; in education research Matthews (2011) found that humor had no effect on recall in the short term but a positive effect in the long term. Humor was used only in 9% of posts across the 15 active science blogs examined by Luzon (2013), although Kouper (2010) suggests humor may be used more frequently in blog comments.

Both groups expressed the highest enjoyment for the treatment in which they demonstrated the greatest recall. This is not surprising, given that enjoyment has been correlated with both science learning (Ainley & Ainley, 2011) and recall of written texts (Ryan, Connell, & Plant, 1990). This also suggests that engagement and education in blogs are not contradictory aims. Currently, science bloggers appear to be aiming for educational outcomes (e.g., Jarreau, 2015b; Thorsen, 2013) and science communicators for increased public engagement with the process of science (Tola, 2008; Wilkins, 2008). In reality, most people expect their informal science learning experiences to be both educational and engaging and do not have any problems in achieving both aims (e.g., Falk, Moussouri, & Coulson, 1998) and the two approaches are complementary (Dufty, 2011).

Although we found no significant relationship between recall and enjoyment, this is possibly due to the major limitation of this study: The blog post used as an example was well-liked, and participants showed high levels of information recall after reading it. While this is highly complimentary to the writer, and shows that both scientists and nonscientists can enjoy and learn from science blog posts, it is likely to have affected the analysis due to the ceiling effect, in which the scale fails to discriminate at high values (Austin & Brunner, 2003). In addition, our results might not reflect real-world outcomes, as the participants are likely to have read more attentively than they ordinarily would, because they knew it was part of a study and so conjectured that they would be tested on recall of the material.

We found that there was no difference between scientists and nonscientists on the prereading test answers, but scientists displayed greater recall on the postreading test after reading the blog. This may be because the scientist participants have more experience in learning from science texts or are motivated to read science content; students who study science at university are known to have higher motivation, self-efficacy, and self-determination to learn science compared to students of other subjects (Glynn et al., 2011), all of which could influence recall. However, there is still no definitive description of a scientist or a nonscientist; the definition used in this study excludes people with considerable science knowledge established through, for example, their hobbies. People are also likely to exist along a science education continuum, rather than being dichotomously either highly educated in science or not educated in science. In addition, our findings suggest broad directions for bloggers looking to address broad audience groups; however, we suggest that ideally researchers and organizations should gather more detailed data about their audience in order to better address their readers (see Matthews & Wallis, 2015 for example).

Although 60% to 80% of people state that they first use the Internet when searching for specific science information (National Science Board, 2016; Searle, 2014), there is little evidence that science blogs are being read by nonscientists (Jarreau & Porter, 2017; Kouper, 2010). We also observed this among our participants, as we recruited fewer nonscientists, and they reported they were less likely to read science blogs. Internet audiences are fragmented (Bubela et al., 2009), and science content online can be easily avoided by unaware or uninterested browsers. We examined design choices and how they influenced information recall by blog readers; more work needs to be done on how nonscientists can be attracted to blogs in the first place.

Conclusion

Adding images is a simple strategy that science bloggers can use to increase their blogs’ appeal to nonscientists, without having any significant influence on scientist readers. Bloggers who are specifically aiming to appeal to readers with a scientific background should consider increasing their use of videos to support the text. Future research should focus on how and where science bloggers should promote their blogs to draw in nonscientist readers and on longer term studies of the influence of blog design on learning, engagement, and the likelihood of repeat visits.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The University of Western Australia science communication research group of 2016 provided invaluable feedback on the study. We would also like to thank all the participants who took time out of their day to partake in our studies; your insights and efforts are truly appreciated.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Miriam Sullivan

Ann Grand

Author Biographies

Anna Gardiner studied zoology and has completed her master’s in science communication at the University of Western Australia. She has worked in a variety of science communication and media roles and writes the Odd Organisms blog.

Miriam Sullivan is a lecturer in Science Communication at the University of Western Australia. Her research focuses on evidence-based teaching and public engagement.

Ann Grand is a lecturer in Science Communication at the University of Western Australia. Her research interests focus on aspects of researchers’ practice in digital engagement and how public engagement with research can be supported and facilitated through digital technologies. She was previously a research fellow in science communication at the University of the West of England and The Open University, United Kingdom.

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