Abstract
Scientists’ participation in science communication is essential to the communication between the public and the scientific community. Therefore, how to improve scientists’ enthusiasm and continued participation in this regard is a practical question. Through in-depth interviews with 27 scientists, media practitioners, university officers and relevant researchers in China based on grounded theory, this study explores the motivations and perceived conditions affecting scientists’ initial and sustained participation, analyses the possible relationships between the predictors and the motivation–attitude–behaviour mechanism of scientists’ participation and puts forward corresponding suggestions to provide references for related research and practice.
Introduction
The popularization and diffusion of science and technology has made them an inseparable part of people's daily lives. The scientific community is the representative and main force of a country's scientific and technological development. Thus, it has the social responsibility to inform the public of the risks and benefits that science and technology may bring (Tsfati et al., 2011). In return, society should give it the understanding and support that it needs to create a good environment for scientific and technological development. Therefore, the scientific community and society should form an interactive mechanism, strengthen their exchanges and enhance their mutual trust, especially in public emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Studies have found that scientists’ participation in science communication can bridge the gaps between the scientific community and the public, change the public's views on science and scientists (Poliakoff et al., 2004), increase the public's support for scientific research (Greenwood and Riordan, 2001), and play an important role in the effects of communication activities (Besley and Dudo, 2017; Dai et al., 2015). This is especially true for the star scientists who continuously participate in public activities. In the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists’ participation played a crucial role in the fight against the ‘infodemic’, and scientists who engaged with the public constantly brought ‘important consequences for the users’ knowledge, emotions, and behaviors’ (Utz et al., 2022). However, many scientists are cautious about participating in science communication (Liang et al., 2014), because those activities would occupy their research time and may cause them to get involved in controversial issues or debates (Nölleke et al., 2023). Moreover, scientists have their own research projects, and they participate in science communication either due to their interests or due to organizational arrangements resulting from accidental factors. Professional science communication requires training and skills, and how to keep scientists participating in science communication rather than giving up after their training is a practical issue that should be discussed.
To ensure the effectiveness of science communication and the implementation of strategies encouraging scientists to engage in it, it is necessary to explore systematically the predictors influencing scientists’ participation and to comprehensively understand its mechanism. Thus, in this study, we conducted in-depth interviews with scientists and related researchers in China, and, based on an open research perspective, we used grounded theory to explore the predictors and outline behavioural mechanisms that affect scientists’ continued participation in science communication in China.
Literature review
Predictors of scientists’ science communication
With the development of science and technology, research on scientists’ motivations for participating in science communication and the factors influencing their participation has been enriched. Most human behaviours involve complex psychological activities, including the consideration of various internal and external factors. Studies have shown that whether scientists participate in science communication is related to the following factors: their interests (Clare et al., 2023), sense of responsibility and enthusiasm for science and the attitudes of their significant others (Martín-Sempere et al., 2008); their media use habits (Dudo, 2013); their occupational status, media literacy and the predictable returns of such participation (Dunwoody et al., 2009); their disciplines (Peters et al., 2008); their organizations (Marcinkowski et al., 2014); their perceptions of subjective norms (Chen et al., 2023), media and media audiences (Jin et al., 2018; Tsfati et al., 2011); their self-efficacy, expression ability, participation experiences and chance (Bentley and Kyvik, 2011; Besley and Dudo, 2017; Poliakoff and Webb, 2007); and culture and institutions (Zhang, 2015).
Previous studies have summarized the predictors that influence scientists’ participation in science communication, but very few of them, such as Dudo (2013), have analysed the influencing factors based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), social cognition theory and cultivation theory. Dudo used these theories to determine the variables that could be integrated into a model to estimate the behaviour of scientists’ participation, study the behaviour and explore the mechanisms by which the behaviour arises and persists. Only a clear understanding of the behavioural mechanisms can explain scientists’ engagement activities in terms of commonalities and provide suggestions for motivating scientists’ engagement.
In addition, the situation of science communication differs by country and region, and there are many factors that should be considered in motivating scientists’ participation according to the context. Research on scientists’ behavioural mechanisms of science communication has mainly been conducted in Western contexts, whereas limited systematic studies have been performed in China, which has a different science-communication environment and is home to the world's largest population of scientific researchers (Chen et al., 2023). Thus, this study may provide different perspectives and enlightenment for related research.
The behavioural mechanisms of scientists’ science communication
Among the theories and research that explain and predict human behaviour, TPB is widely used. It posits that intentions have a positive impact on future behaviours, that human behaviour is determined by behavioural intention and perceived behavioural control (PBC), and that behavioural intention is influenced by attitudes, subjective norms and PBC (Ajzen, 1991). In science communication, TPB is often used to analyse the factors that affect people's participation behaviour (Besley et al., 2018; Poliakoff and Webb, 2007).
However, some studies (Chatzisarantis et al., 2007; Hagger and Chatzisarantis, 2009) hold that TPB lacks the fundamental factors that explain behaviour and should be combined with the self-determination theory (SDT). SDT holds that human beings have a need for self-development, that they can satisfy this need by behaving in a self-determined cognitive way in which they can comprehensively consider external and internal factors (Deci and Ryan, 2015), and that motivations have significant effects on people's willingness and behaviour.
Motivations could be divided into two main categories: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation means that people act out of their own needs, and completing some task can bring satisfaction. It is a kind of autonomous need that has a strong behavioural orientation, and thus does not need extrinsic stimuli (Gagné and Deci, 2005). Interest and self-challenge are two examples. When intrinsic motives are not rewarded as expected, they will have a negative impact on future behaviour (Gagné and Deci, 2005). This explains why, although governments and various academic organizations and committees emphasize the importance of communication between the scientific community and the public, scientists’ actual participation in science-communication activities is still low.
Extrinsic motivation is generated by some instrumental stimuli, such as verbal or material rewards, and inner satisfaction comes from responding to these external stimuli. Extrinsic motivations can be further categorized by the subject's degree of autonomy and control. According to the classification and the mechanism of autonomy, the more autonomous a stimulus is, the more it can stimulate an individual to act autonomously and to continue that action. While controlled motivation may also promote behaviour, it cannot satisfy an individual's basic psychological needs in most situations. In the environmental stimulus‒demand generation‒motivation formation‒behaviour implementation cycle, its effect will become smaller and will eventually disappear (Grolnick and Ryan, 1987). In addition, some scholars and studies insist that other predictors, such as habits and environmental constraints, should also be considered in TPB as an integrated behavioural model (Montaño and Kasprzyk, 2015) because they may have significant effects.
Aside from the above-mentioned motivations and predictors, behaviourism holds that external stimuli have a positive impact on behaviour, and thus, extrinsic motivation helps generate and enhance intrinsic motivation. Attribution theory, on the other hand, suggests that external factors may convert an individual's internal motivation to engage in an activity to an external motivation, thereby causing the individual to lose the autonomous motivation to act (Zhao et al., 2016), which makes the behaviour unsustainable. In science communication, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have different effects on scientists’ willingness and different mechanisms for participation in public outreach in different contexts (Dunwoody et al., 2009). How do internal and external factors influence scientists’ initial and continued participation in science communication, and what is the mechanism of such behaviour? Few studies have discussed such mechanisms and conceptual models of scientists’ participation in science communication in China. Thus, we proposed the following research questions:
To explore the internal and external factors, mechanisms and continuous process of scientists’ participation in science communication in China, we followed the steps of grounded theory, which is often used to explain how and why certain phenomena occur or the underlying mechanisms of their occurrence (Corbin and Strauss, 1990).
Research design
In this study, data was collected in three steps. First, a semi-structured interview outline was designed based on the research questions, and face-to-face interviews were preferred. A researcher in science communication and a scientist were invited to conduct the interviews and make necessary adjustments and improvements to the interview outline and questions. Second, according to the principle of theoretical sampling, interviews with scientists were first conducted (for the interview outline, see Appendix A), followed by interviews with media practitioners, university officers and researchers involved in science communication (for the interview outlines, see Appendixes B, C and D). Then, relational and differential sampling was performed, focusing mainly on factors such as discipline and background. Third, the interview data was analysed, and succeeding interviews were continued. After the preliminary sorting and coding of the interview data, main categories were formed, and the relationships between the categories were established. At the same time, whether to continue with the interviews was decided based on the results of the above-mentioned procedures.
Based on the method of theoretical sampling, interviews with a total of 27 respondents (21 scientists with rich experience in science communication, three media practitioners, two researchers in the field of science communication, and one university administrator; Table 1) were conducted. Among the 21 scientists, three were women and 18 were men, and eight (one woman) were involved in controversial topics. The interviews were conducted from 7 March to 15 November 2018, and the total interview time was about 27.5 h. When the number of interview samples reached 27, no more novel details could be found.
The information of interviewees.
The information of interviewees.
According to the research analysis steps proposed by Corbin and Strauss (1990), we first summarized the interview data obtained, extracted the concepts under each theme, and put together the concepts corresponding to a particular category. Second, while adding interviews based on theoretical sampling, we further sought the relationships between the concepts and categories and between the categories. Third, according to the relationships between the categories, we identified the main categories and established the relationships between the main categories and between the main categories and the subcategories. We then established the story line between the interview data and constructed a theoretical model. Finally, based on the coding process and results, we stopped the interviews and conducted data analysis to answer the research questions.
Open coding was used to collect and refine the information contained in the interview data as completely as possible, and to conceptualize and categorize the data for subsequent analysis. At this stage, we categorized and labelled the interview data and finally extracted a total of 234 concepts (A) and 46 categories (B). According to axial coding, the connotative relationships between the 46 categories were further refined and classified, and a total of 11 main categories were extracted (C). Among them, C1 and C2 are participation willingness and behaviour, and communication contents, respectively; C3–C7 summarize the motivation and internal and external factors in scientists’ participation in science communication; C8–C10 are some factors and strategies that the scientists think may promote their participation in science communication; and C11 spans the scientists’ opinions and suggestions on controversial topics. The detailed results of the coding are shown in Table 2.
The results of axial coding.
The results of axial coding.
Through selective coding and after comparing and analysing the relationships between the main categories and according to the research topic, we further integrated C1 and C3–C7 in the 11 main categories into motivations, internal assessments, perceptions of the external environment, and participation behaviours and intentions. Among these, motivations, internal assessments and perceptions of the external environment were found to have direct impacts on participation behaviours and intentions. At the same time, connections between them were explored. The main categorical relationships and the interviewees’ relevant expressions are shown in Table 3.
Selective coding results.
According to the coding results, the predictors affecting scientists’ participation behaviour in science communication can be divided into three categories. The first category is the assessment or perception of internal conditions (e.g., one's motivations, personal attitudes, efficacy, basic characteristics, time and energy, and experiences and habits), in which individual motivation is psychologically prior to a scientist's assessment of other factors and has a strong influence on several other factors. The second category is the perception of external conditions and the environment, such as policies, the economy, culture, technology, convenient conditions and the difficulty of popularizing by discipline. The third category is willingness to participate in science communication.
The results indicate that scientists’ participation in science communication is influenced by various factors, but, in the process of decision-making, participation motivation is a prerequisite for behaviour generation. That is, without participation motivation, participation behaviour cannot occur or persist. At the same time, the degree of autonomy can affect the degree of persistence in the behaviour. Scientists with a higher degree of autonomous behavioural motivation express or show more persistent participation intentions and behaviours. Based on the analysis results of grounded theory, the process and influencing factors of scientists’ participation in science communication are illustrated in Figure 1.
The decision process and influencing factors of scientists’ participation in science communication.
Demographic indicators of scientists’ participation in science communication
Previous research suggests that there is no significant difference in the attitude towards participation in science communication between men and women, but there is a significant difference in their practical participation (Von Roten, 2011). Male scientists are more likely to participate in general (Besley, 2014). Our conclusions are consistent with those in previous studies: both male and female scientists had a positive attitude towards participating in science communication, but male scientists were more willing to continue participating in such activities. We sent invitations for interviews to several female scientists, but most of them did not reply or refused to be interviewed. One female scientist said that she participates in science-communication activities mainly out of perceived obligation.
Personality was also frequently mentioned by the respondents as a factor that influences their participation in science communication. This, coupled with observations of the interviews, shows that scientists with extroverted personalities were inclined to participate in science communication and try various forms of communication. Scientists with introverted personalities, on the other hand, were more cautious about participating in science communication, or participated mainly by writing articles.
The status of scientific research is another important factor that was considered by most of the scientists. For example, S3 thought that scientific research must be a higher priority than science communication and that, if scientific research is tense, science communication should definitely be reduced. P1 and P7 started to participate in science communication when their research workload was not so heavy (such as when they were postdoctoral fellows abroad). E1 believed that scientists who are awaiting the results of their research work are generally not in the mood to participate in science communication. Therefore, the status of research work has a certain influence on whether young and middle-aged scientists will participate in science communication and whether they will continue doing so.
Autonomous motivation and scientists’ continued participation in science communication
In the process of interviewing and coding, we found that the interviewees mentioned the two keywords ‘autonomous’ and ‘passive’ many times, which are close to the definitions of autonomous and controlled motivations in self-determination theory (SDT). The results of our analysis indicate three categories of autonomous motivation that have positive impacts on scientists’ continued participation in science communication.
The first is fully internalized autonomous motivation, of which personal interest was the most frequently mentioned factor. Many interviewees said that their participation in science communication is inseparable from their personal interests and that personal interests have a great impact on personal attitudes and behaviours. For example, S2 said, ‘I am very interested in science communication. Even if my public speaking skills are not good and I may make mistakes, I want to do this.’ S3 stated that, in participating in science communication, ‘There is no tiredness, only like or dislike.’ The second category of autonomous motivation is knowledge-sharing and altruistic motivation, which mainly includes ‘expecting people to know their research and research fields’ and ‘altruistic sharing’. For example, S7 believed that ‘Anticipating that more people will get to know what we are studying is the main reason [for participation in science communication].’ S8 said, ‘Sometimes I think the knowledge will be very useful to some people, so I want to tell them and convince them of it.’ The third category is the prospect of obtaining psychological satisfaction, including the realization of self-worth or overcoming challenges, as it will give the scientists a sense of accomplishment and recognition. This kind of positive feedback has positive effects on scientists’ continued participation in science communication.
According to SDT, the autonomous forms of extrinsic motivation include integrated regulation and identified regulation. Integrated regulation refers to the complete internalization of extrinsic motivation and the motivation of scientists to act independently out of their own psychological needs. As the conditions for fully internalized autonomous motivation are relatively limited, promoting the internalization of extrinsic motivation is one of the main ways to generate motivated behaviour. Based on grounded theory, there are two main categories of integrated regulation.
The first category is the sense of responsibility, including maintaining the correctness of science, changing the public's misunderstanding of it, conforming to the ultimate goal of scientific research, promoting public participation consciousness, and stabilizing social emotions. For example, P7 said: The 2018 vaccine incident caused not only huge losses to the country and public distrust of the government and related departments but also a shortage of vaccines that year due to penalties, crackdowns and closures of vaccine manufacturing firms. At the same time, there were still media or related institutions that were highlighting the shortage of vaccines rather than spreading knowledge of how to prevent the disease through other means. Therefore, the main purpose of popularizing relevant knowledge at this time is to ease the public's anxiety.
The second category of integrated regulation includes increasing one's knowledge and ability, acquiring new perspectives and finding new research questions, and promoting children's education and development. For example, P1 and P2 started participating in science communication by writing blogs. Both said that obtaining new knowledge in this process was their motivation to constantly update their articles. According to S2, in the process of cooperating with the media, he realized that the media had an unexpectedly high degree of professionalization in science communication. In addition, in the community of scientists, especially among young and middle-aged researchers identified in our study, the concern for children's education and development indirectly motivates them to participate in science communication. For example, S3 said that several of his colleagues from different research fields wanted to help children learn something important, but their personal energy was limited. Thus, four of them formed an organization and started some activities, and whoever had time took their children to such activities to play and learn. Later, he found that the children were particularly interested in the activities, and that brought him much psychological satisfaction. Thus, they held and organized such activities whenever their time allowed it, not only for their own children but for other children as well. Indeed, the need for self-improvement and the education of the next generation are sustainable motivation factors in the process of human self-development. When they are internalized as the motivations for participation in science communication, they will have a sustainable effect on scientists’ autonomous participation in such activities.
Identified regulation in SDT refers to the internalization of extrinsic motivation in which individuals identify with the value and importance of a particular behaviour. Based on grounded theory, scientists have two main kinds of identified regulation motives for participating in science communication. The first is practical acquisition, including a certain target income, visibility enhancement, social network expansion, scientific research enrichment, accumulation of data as a supplement to teaching, and possible benefits to career development. For example, S2 said that, at the start, he obtained a relatively good income from participating in science communication and that he was satisfied with such a cooperative relationship; P3 said that, soon after he began participating in science communication, his income from such activities came to exceed his salary; S9 said that, although writing blogs itself does not bring any income, it can attract some advertisements, which, aside from bringing income, is also a recognition of their work, thus indirectly motivating them to engage in it.
The second type of identified regulation motive is that scientists’ participation in science communication has the potential to promote the development of a scientific and cultural atmosphere, including promoting the development of the science-popularization industry, improving citizens’ scientific literacy and cultivating citizens’ interest in science. For example, S2 and S3 believed that science communication cannot depend on national policies and needs to find an industrialization path to achieve sustainable development. According to P2, ‘Only when the public is really interested in science will they learn about science and improve their scientific literacy’; science-communication activities can attract public attention and cultivate people's interest through diversified forms. Although most scientists agree with these values or views, these factors cannot necessarily lead to scientists’ participation in science communication, and their degree of internalization and autonomy is low or unstable, as shown by our coding results. Therefore, their role in motivating scientists to begin to participate or continue participating in science communication needs to be considered based on different situations.
Controlled motivation and scientists’ continued participation in science communication
Controlled motivation in SDT refers to accomplishing an action or behaviour more out of the consideration of external conditions, which belongs to the category of extrinsic motivation. The difference between autonomous motivation and controlled motivation is that the latter means that an individual's behaviour is not for the purpose of identification but more on account of external conditions, requirements or obedience. Controlled motivation can stimulate participation behaviour, but the effect will not persist without rewards, and, when the controlling influence disappears, it may even lead to negative effects on future behaviours (Deci and Ryan, 2015).
Based on our coding results, we found that scientists have three main types of controlled motivations for participating in science communication according to the degree of control. The first type includes external incentives, such as increasing the visibility of the scientist's organization, obtaining support from society, receiving funds and resources, enjoying benefits for student recruitment, getting support for the development of disciplines, and meeting the market demand for popular science. Most of the interviewees in this study indicated that these were not their major considerations for participating in science communication, but they agreed that science communication could bring these benefits. Some of the interviewees even said that there was no need to shy away from such statements and considerations. M1 said that, although scientists themselves might not be aware of the benefits of science communication, it could actually bring these benefits.
The second type of controlled motivation mainly includes work demands, the provision of research projects or funding and the fulfilment of previous commitments. Regarding the requirement for science communication in research projects or funds, there are two opposing views among the interviewees. One group believes that such a requirement may cause some scientists to think that science communication is a task in the project, so they will do it only because it is a requirement. That may lead to a waste of funds and poor research results. The other group argues that, without such a requirement, most scientists would probably never participate in science communication, making it difficult for their research to be seen by the public. This contradiction, just like the contradiction between behaviourism and the attribution theory regarding the mechanisms of internal and extrinsic motivations on behaviour, needs to be explained from the perspective of basic psychological needs. Based on grounded theory, few scientists said that they participated in science communication because it was a requirement of their personal research projects and funds. Instead, most scientists said that this requirement did not affect their willingness to participate in science communication. Therefore, this kind of controlled motivation has a certain influence on participation, but it might not have an effective influence on participation intention or continued participation.
The third type and also the most controlled motivation factor is compulsory requirement, meaning that, without some external conditions or incentives, people will not carry out an action. According to SDT, this kind of motivation with strong external control will eventually have a negative influence on behaviour. In this study, it includes two main aspects: orders or additional tasks assigned by leaders, and scientific research that is hard to carry out and then turn into a public engagement. Most of the interviewed scientists found it difficult to accept tasks that are not related to scientific research. The assignment of such tasks involves authority rather than autonomy, so the final result is passive implementation. For example, one interviewee said: I write blogs and give speeches to children; these are the things I want to do. Some leaders assign science communication activities that, while having the forms that may not be much different from blogs, will take up too much time. In this case, I will take the assignment although I don’t want to do it.
Generally, our coding results show that the degrees of autonomous and controlled motivations have effects on scientists’ willingness and behaviour; external motivations may have a positive impact on willingness, but the final effects and sustained effects depend on whether the stimuli could satisfy their basic psychological needs or be internalized as autonomous motivations. The behavioural mechanism of scientists’ participation in science communication, the autonomous level and the possibility of continued participation are described in Figure 2.
The behavioural mechanism of scientists’ participation in science communication.
Many environmental factors and individual factors can also influence the specific process from motivation to behaviour generation. The generation and persistence of a behaviour need not only constant stimulation from internal and extrinsic motivation factors but also guarantees and feedback from certain perceived internal and external conditions, such as whether people have the ability to complete something and whether the policy conditions allow it. While TPB does not discuss the more fundamental factors that explain the generation of behaviour, it analyses the internal and external factors and processes that determine the generation of behaviour (Chatzisarantis et al., 2007; Hagger and Chatzisarantis, 2009). In the process of grounded theory analysis in this study, we found that scientists’ actual and continued participation in science communication is also affected by the relevant dimension indicators of TPB; thus, it is necessary to sort out these indicators.
The second type is their attitudes towards the media, which have a certain effect on scientists’ initial and sustained participation in science communication. Scientists’ perceptions related to the media include the need for more trust and respect between scientists and the media, and the impression that media reports tend to focus on people rather than on knowledge, that opinions expressed in the media can easily be misunderstood, that media reports are not rigorous, and that the media may easily take words out of context.
Finally, scientists’ attitudes towards the public also have an important influence on their participation in science communication. In the interviews, most scientists expressed their belief that the audiences need to be classified, to pay more attention to science, and to become more involved in science communication. They also expressed the belief that the audiences are emotional and do not trust the relevant government departments or scientists, and that the new-generation audiences have de-authorization and decentralization tendencies and are more receptive to new forms of communication and new technologies. However, based on the interviews and TPB, attitudes do not necessarily play a direct role in scientists’ practical participation in science communication; thus, there may be a discrepancy between scientists’ attitudes and their behaviours (Jin et al., 2018).
First, there is a correlation between the perception of the organizational culture and individual participation behaviour. The interviewed scientists thought that science communication has not been paid attention to, and that most of their colleagues have a relatively weak awareness of it and an insufficient understanding of its significance. Sometimes, participating in science communication will become a stumbling block on the path of personal career promotion, which confirms the Sagan effect.
Second, with regard to the perception of the relevant science and community culture in the scientific community, there are more detailed communities by discipline and school, and such communities have different perceptions of different topics. The interviewed scientists believed that the scientific community has a positive attitude towards popular science, but they do not pay much attention to it due to scientific research pressure or other reasons. There are also some negative views; for example, they think that some people engage in science communication because of the failure of scientific research.
Third, one's personal cultural environment also has an impact on one's decision to participate in science communication. For example, some scientists (S2, S3, P1) believed that there was a writing culture in the circumstance in which they grew up, which made them like writing and gave them a degree of confidence as early as in their youth. At the same time, most of the books that had a great influence on them in their childhood were popular-science books; thus, it was natural for them to write similar articles.
Finally, the degree of commercial cultural perception of participating in science communication also has an impact on participation behaviour. For example, S2, S3, S4 and S8 believed that commercial elements are very important and conducive to the professionalization of science communication. S6 and S9 added commercial elements to their official accounts, while S5 said that he would avoid activities related to commercial interests.
The perception of a specific institutional environment includes the perception of relevant policies and regulations, such as the difficulty of going through administrative procedures to participate in science communication, the rules and regulations that need to be complied with to participate in such activities, and science-communication funding policies. In his interview, E1, a university administrator, said that the management of his university was still relatively strict in the past few years. Whenever scientists wanted to leave the university premises to participate in popular-science activities, they had to fill in many application forms and wait for approval; as a result, many scientists no longer wanted to attend such activities. M1 said that, in the past, the remuneration for scientists’ participation in popular-science activities was very low. On the one hand, this was because the popular-science industry was still in the early stage of development in those years, and there was not much funding available; on the other hand, there was also a rule that scientists’ remuneration for participation in such activities could not exceed a certain amount. Although the limit seems to have been raised in recent years, it is still not high.
The perception of a specific institutional environment also includes views on the professional training system and the performance-encouragement system for science communication. Specifically, this refers to the construction of science-communication majors and disciplines and views on whether to add participation in science communication to the performance-appraisal system. Two different views on this issue surfaced in the interviews. One is that it is necessary to add participation in science communication to the performance-appraisal system because scientists will participate in such activities only if they feel that there are real benefits from doing so. This does not mean that it should be directly added to the professional title rating system but that it should be made an add-on (P1, P3, R1) or a separate system (S1). The other view considers this completely unnecessary because participating in science communication is a voluntary decision. They said that, although it is in line with the ultimate goal of promoting scientific research activities, if it were included in the evaluation system, it would be likely to damage the scientific community's research atmosphere and ecosystem (P8, E1).
Other predictors mentioned in the interviews
Lack of time and energy was mentioned by all the interviewees as a reason for not participating in science communication, even though some were actively involved in such activities. Relevant studies have shown that most scientists will consider whether they have time to participate in science communication before doing so, and that lack of time is one of the frequently cited reasons for not participating in such activities (Bentley and Kyvik, 2011; Besley et al., 2018; Poliakoff and Webb, 2007). The interviewees in our study believe that researchers need to keep learning and spend time and energy studying. For example, S10 said that she had been invited by the media to speak because of her scientific research achievements, but she refused because her job as a scientist is to conduct research, so she needs to focus on research. In addition, scientists also have families, and they have to go home after work to carry out their family duties, such as educating their children. When asked about his family's views on his participation in science communication, S2 said that his family had some complaints, and that his child wanted him to spend more time with him on weekends. Although the correlation between perceived time and energy for participating in science communication and actual participation could not be confirmed in this study, it is reasonable to think that lack of time has an impact on the withdrawal of participation.
Past behaviours and habits have a significant influence on future behaviours and on several factors in the decision-making process (Conner and Armitage, 1998; Hagger and Chatzisarantis, 2009). In this study, most of the interviewees said that past participation has effects on future participation. For example, S3 said that he began to participate in science communication because doing so enabled him to earn credits and obtain awards from his university, but then he gradually realized that he liked these activities, and that the remuneration and the audience's evaluation of him were also good reasons for him to keep participating in such activities. P2 said that he started writing science blogs not for the purpose of participating in science communication but because he wanted to write down his feelings and reviews about the articles he had read. The blogs were thus just ‘by-products’ of his scientific research and part of his personal working habit. Later, he found that sharing his blog posts to others might be useful for them. Positive feedback and personal habits have positive impacts on the generation and persistence of behaviours, and, when these factors are combined with science communication, scientists’ participation in such activities will also be a continuous activity.
In addition to the perceived external environment mentioned above, the scientists interviewed in our study also mentioned the perception of technologies and convenient conditions, but they said that those factors did not have significant impacts on their willingness to participate in science communication or in their actual participation. On the whole, scientists’ perceptions of the external environment have an influence on their continued participation in science communication, but that influence is not necessarily direct or significant. If these factors can be fully utilized or combined with motivation, they may have positive significance for continued participation intention and behaviour.
Based on the results of coding and the discussion above, we believe that the conceptual model of scientists’ participation in science communication can be illustrated as a motivation–attitude–behaviour model, as shown in Figure 3.
The conceptual model of scientists’ participation in science communication.
In general, there are three main characteristics regarding the participation of Chinese scientists in science communication. First, their participation is more influenced by personal aspects such as autonomous motivations, and this is different from the results of previous studies (Rodrigues et al., 2023; Rose et al., 2020; Tiffany et al., 2022). Although external factors such as subjective norms may have some influence on willingness, the scientists in the interviews did not consider them sufficient to influence their participation, especially their sustained participation. Second, scientists’ participation in science communication in China is more likely to be an individual behaviour than a collective, cooperative behaviour. Although science communication has been promoted by the government and affiliated groups, more participation and sustained involvement arises from individuals’ interest, sense of responsibility and sentiment; there is less influence from other external factors. This suggests that external factors, such as norms about science communication and the related systems and circumstances, may need to be improved. Third, in the attitude–willingness–behaviour process, scientists’ attitudes and willingness do not have a conclusive influence on their behaviour. In the surveys of Jin et al. (2018), most of the scientists have a willingness to participate in science communication, but only a few of them participate in those activities. Research on the prediction and analysis of participation behaviour based on scientists’ willingness needs to be further considered in the context of China.
Scientists’ participation, especially their sustained participation, in science communication is essential in public emergencies and the post-pandemic era, which are full of uncertainty. Goals and motivations are important to scientists’ participation, while ‘we have little systematic knowledge about scholars’ goals for public engagement in the academic literature’ (Besley et al., 2020). In this study, scientists’ motivations, internal and external conditions, and behavioural mechanisms for participation and continued participation in science communication were explored in the context of China using grounded theory.
Scientists’ motivations, perceived conditions and willingness to participate and continue to participate in science communication were first explored through in-depth interviews. Then, based on grounded theory, the main factors influencing their participation were mapped out, and the possible relationships between the factors were explored and extracted. We have discussed the importance of the degree of autonomy in scientists’ continued participation in science communication. Finally, through comparison and refinement, we have outlined the behavioural mechanism and the model of scientists’ participation in science communication. In general, this study explored the motivations and predictors influencing scientists’ initial and continued participation in science communication, illustrated the behavioural mechanism and constructed a motivation–attitude–behaviour model, which can provide reference for related research and practice.
However, there are also limitations in this study. First, for the interviewees, scientists with rich experience in science communication were selected, and scientists who had given up participation in those activities were not included, although some of the eight interviewees involved in controversial science issues said that they had thought of giving up their participation in the activities. Second, we had invited some female scientists, but only three of them accepted the interview, which might not have illustrated the situation comprehensively. Third, the theoretical model that was constructed needs to be further verified through empirical studies.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Author biographies
Yang Li is a lecturer at the College of Communication and Art Design, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. She was a visiting scholar at the Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University. Her research interests include science communication, new media studies, and editing and publishing science.
Leilei Zhang is a graduate student at the College of Communication and Art Design, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology.