Amid calls from scientific leaders for their colleagues to become more effective public communicators, this study examines the objectives that scientists’ report drive their public engagement behaviors. We explore how scientists evaluate five specific communication objectives, which include informing the public about science, exciting the public about science, strengthening the public’s trust in science, tailoring messages about science, and defending science from misinformation. We use insights from extant research, the theory of planned behavior, and procedural justice theory to identify likely predictors of scientists' views about these communication objectives. Results show that scientists most prioritize communication designed to defend science from misinformation and educate the public about science, and least prioritize communication that seeks to build trust and establish resonance with the public. Regression analyses reveal factors associated with scientists who prioritize each of the five specific communication objectives. Our findings highlight the need for communication trainers to help scientists select specific communication objectives for particular contexts and audiences.

A set of parallel surveys of scientists from multiple scientific societies finds that the most consistent predictors of willingness to take part in engagement activities with the public are a belief that she or he will enjoy the experience (attitude), make a difference through engagement (response efficacy), and has the time to engage. Age, sex, scientific field, what a scientist thinks about the public, perceived personal engagement skill (self-efficacy), and what a scientist thinks about her or his colleagues (normative beliefs) are inconsistent predictors. Research may be needed to find how to shape scientists' engagement views in ways that are both effective and acceptable.

This study aims to contribute to our empirical understanding of the factors and processes that lead scientists to engage in public communication. Using a national sample, this study identifies key factors that contribute to scientists’ public communication activity, including a scientist’s status, communication autonomy, use of print and online media, intrinsic rewards, communication training, perceived behavioral controls, normative beliefs, and perceived level of medialization. In addition to these findings, this study aims to extend our understanding of the popularization process by injecting theoretical rationale, accounting for indirect pathways of influence, and proposing a baseline model that can be refined over time.

This study investigates scientists as public communicators, with a particular focus on factors that influence scientists' interactions with the mass media. Based on a U.S. survey of scientists, the results show that some of the patterns characterizing these interactions have remained remarkably stable over the course of at least three decades. Scientists continue to interact with journalists more frequently than commonly assumed, and status, socialization, and positive intrinsic rewards are all positively associated with higher frequencies of media contact.

This study looks at how United States-based academic scientists from five professional scientific societies think about eight different communication objectives. The degree to which scientists say they would prioritize these objectives in the context of face-to-face public engagement is statistically predicted using the scientists' attitudes, normative beliefs, and efficacy beliefs, as well as demographics and past communication activity, training, and past thinking about the objectives. The data allow for questions about the degree to which such variables consistently predict views about objectives. The research is placed in the context of assessing factors that communication trainers might seek to reshape if they wanted get scientists to consider choosing specific communication objectives.