Science Communication OnlineFirst, published on March 6, 2009 as doi:10.1177/1075547009332650
Exploring a Black Box
Cross-National Study of Visit
Effects on Visitors to Large Physics
Research Centers in Europe
Science Communication
Volume XX Number X
Month XXXX xx-xx
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10.1177/1075547009332650
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Federico Neresini
University of Padova, Italy
Kostas Dimopoulos
University of Peloponnese, Greece
Monika Kallfass
Hans Peter Peters
Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany
Results from a cross-national quantitative study of 3,301 visitors to four large
physics research centers in Europe focus on short-term learning and motivational effects. The authors collected data from these visitors before and after
visiting the centers as part of a research project funded by the European Union.
Overall, visitors’ knowledge of the research centers increased. However, effects
on learning of scientific concepts are not so clear. The visits mostly seem to
reaffirm visitors’ prior attitudes and images related to the centers. The findings
imply that these visits offer some learning potential and, for school students,
increased motivation to enter a scientific profession, but in terms of altering
visitors’ images they seem rather ineffective. Nevertheless, because of their
uniqueness in allowing different publics an authentic glimpse of the production
of scientific knowledge, visits to research centers remain an important public
communication activity.
Keywords: public visits; research center; cross-national study; short-term
learning effects
M
any national and international research centers and research laboratories for science and technology offer regular visit programs and
“Open Day” initiatives for the general public. Remarkable efforts and
resources are put into these visit programs by the research institutions,
and, in turn, each year thousands of visitors—for example, school classes,
university students, and groups of nonexperts from the public—are taking
1
2 Science Communication
the opportunity to look behind the scenes at scientific research in progress
(e.g., more than 50,000 visitors at the four research centers in our study in
2001). However, despite the fact that these activities currently constitute an
integral part of the everyday functioning of a number of research centers
and have attracted growing numbers of visitors, we have only anecdotal
evidence about the answers to even basic questions about these activities.
Thus, with little systematic knowledge available about the social and cognitive processes that take place on the visitors’ part during these visits, these
well-established forms of direct contact and communication between scientific institutions and the public rather evoke images of a black box, from
both a scientific and a science communication point of view.
While numerous studies about the impact of visits to science museums and
science centers have been undertaken (Bitgood, Serrell, & Thompson, 1994;
Garnett, 2003; Persson, 2000), and although some conditions under which visits
to science museums and centers take place (e.g., exposure to a large amount of
new knowledge in relatively short time, curatorship)1 are quite similar to the
conditions during visits to research centers, the results from these studies also
demonstrate the necessity for more efforts to try new methodological solutions
and to gather further empirical evidence (Piscitelli & Anderson, 2000; Rennie &
McClafferty, 1995). Furthermore, it is crucial to bear in mind the special nature of
visits to research laboratories: Scientific research is actually being done at these
centers, and therefore such visits give visitors the opportunity to come into
“direct” contact with science and ongoing research rather than with an “artificial
representation” of it, as is usually the case with visits to other sites of technoscientific interest, such as science museums and science and technology centers.
This article addresses the problem of understanding the effects of public
visits to large physics research laboratories. We draw on the results of the
INside the Big Black Box (IN3B) research project funded by the European
Union for the period from 2002 to 2004, which aimed at a systematic
analysis of core aspects of visit programs by empirically analyzing and
comparing visit data from national and international physics research
centers in four European countries: DESY, Hamburg, Germany;
DEMOKRITOS, Athens, Greece; LNGS, National Laboratory of Gran
Sasso, L’Aquila, Italy; and CERN, Geneva, Switzerland/France.2
General Structure of Standard Visits
to the Research Centers
Our study analyzes standard visits offered by the four research centers in
their regular visit program. As one would assume, the program for these
Neresini et al. / Large Physics Research Centers in Europe 3
standard visits varies among the four research centers according to each
research center’s objectives, organizational structure, and type of research.
However, despite this variability, there are some striking similarities that to
our knowledge can also be found at other scientific research centers. These
similarities, which concern the general approach and visit structure, the main
target group for the standard visit program (school students), the involvement
of (mainly doctoral) students as visit guides, the guides’ presentation of
scientific information, and so on, may in part result from the international
networking of the research centers and the way in which they learn from each
other’s public relations or outreach activities. Also, the similar activities and
objects presented, which in our case are ongoing scientific research in physics
and the related extraordinary scientific instruments in use at the research
centers, could lead to a rather standardized approach to the visits, neglecting
alternative ways of approaching the visit.
Below we present the typical path followed by the visitors to the four
physics research centers studied during regular visits, emphasizing their
common features and reporting their differences only when these differences
are considered important for their effects on visitors.
The overall duration of the visits ranges from 1.5 hours in the case of
DEMOKRITOS to 2.5 hours in the case of DESY, and the visits are
generally structured into three main parts. In the introductory phase, with the
help of one or more guides (usually doctoral students or PR staff), visitors
are led to a seminar or conference room where they receive a short
presentation in the form of an oral lecture, sometimes supported by
additional material such as slides, leaflets, brochures, and short videos about
the history, the research activities, and/or the institutional structure of the
research center (only in the case of DEMOKRITOS is this phase at the end
of the visit). At the end of this phase, visitors can pose questions and discuss
issues raised during the presentations with the guides. Therefore, the
purposes of this phase seem to be to familiarize the visitors with the research
profile of the research center and to inform them about the structure of the
visit. The second phase forms the main part of the visit where smaller groups
of visitors are guided around some of the scientific facilities of the research
center. Only in the case of DEMOKRITOS do the visitors follow the tour as
one group. The tour includes several stops, at each of which visitors have the
chance to hear a short presentation by the visit guide or a different scientist
about (a) the basic scientific concepts and theories underlying the research
activities, (b) the technical arrangements and safety measures taken for
conducting these activities, and finally (c) their purpose. The visitors can
pose any questions they wish at the end of each such short presentation. The
4 Science Communication
sequence of the visit can be altered by the guides depending on the particular
circumstances in all the research centers except at LNGS, where visitors
have to move into its underground laboratories in the Gran Sasso Mountain
and for safety reasons must follow a predefined path. Thus, at all research
centers visitors have a unique opportunity to come in contact with authentic
conditions of scientific research.
The last phase of the visit has the objective of helping visitors reflect on
what they have learned so far and also in some cases (e.g., CERN and
DESY) to provide them with extra promotional material. This phase usually
takes the form of discussions among the visitors, the guides, and sometimes
members of the scientific staff. During these discussions queries can be
clarified, worries about safety issues can be dispelled, and ethical and social
dimensions of research can be touched on.
Method
Survey Design for the IN3B EU Project
In the IN3B project, PR staff at each of the four research centers
collaborated with social scientists from a different scientific institution in
each participating country. For the surveys at the research centers, a mixture
of qualitative and quantitative empirical methods was used. At each center,
a large quantitative survey was carried out. In total, 3,301 visitors at all the
research centers were interviewed twice by a self-administered questionnaire,
once directly before and once again immediately after the visit.
In addition to this main quantitative study, two qualitative methods
were also applied at each center: immediately after the visit, some visitors
(159 cases at all the centers) were interviewed in semistructured in-depth
interviews, and in ethnographic observations a few visitor groups (40 cases
for all the centers) were observed during their visit. In addition, interviews
were conducted with the PR coordinators of the four research centers,
and relevant statistics and documentation from the research centers were
analyzed in order to identify the research centers’ objectives behind their
regular visit programs.
This combination of several quantitative and qualitative methods used in
the IN3B project allowed us to study a variety of aspects and dimensions of
the visit programs.
In this article, we present the analysis of visit effects as a core dimension
of the visit activities, which is based on the quantitative survey of the IN3B
Neresini et al. / Large Physics Research Centers in Europe 5
project, in particular on the comparison of visitor responses before and after
the visit.
Sampling
The quantitative surveys at the four research centers were carried out in
the period 2002 to 2003. The construction of the sample of visitors was
aimed to represent the typical structure of visitors on the standard visit
program at the four research centers. Because the research centers organize
their standard visit program mainly for groups of visitors rather than for
individual visitors, the samples of the four centers are based on visitor
groups (stratified clustered sampling), and all the members of each selected
group received a questionnaire immediately before and after their visit. At
the same time, each visitor in the sample was randomly allocated to either
Subsample A or Subsample B. This division into two subsamples allowed us
to pose some questions to one half of the visitor sample before the visit and
the same questions to the other half of the sample after the visit. At DESY
and DEMOKRITOS, the random allocation of visitors to either Subsample
A or Subsample B was achieved by randomly distributing the numbered
questionnaires to the members of a visiting group before the visit while
alternating between uneven (Subsample A) and even (Subsample B)
questionnaire numbers. After the visit, each visitor received the second
questionnaire with the same number as the first questionnaire received
before the visit. In the cases of CERN and LNGS, the random assignment
was based on groups (mainly school classes) instead of individuals, matching
the two questionnaires through a specific code given to each visitor.
The response rate was generally high (more than 95% at all the centers)
because only very few visitors refused to complete the questionnaire before
the visit and a slightly higher, but still small, number of visitors did not fill
in the questionnaire after the visit.
Of the selected visitors groups, the majority of visitors at each of the
research centers are school students (Table 1) who are accompanied by
their teachers. At CERN and DESY, the predominance of school students is
lower because approximately 30% of the visitors are groups of adult
visitors from the general public, including expert and nonexpert visitors,
such as groups of staff from companies, hobby clubs, senior citizens, local
community groups, parliamentarians, and so on. Especially at DESY,
university students and particularly physics students are another important
target group of the standard visit program (15% of the DESY visitors).
6 Science Communication
Table 1
Sample of Visitors
CERN, Switzerland/
DEMOKRITOS, DESY, FranceGreeceGermany
%
%
%
Visitor type
School students
62.2
91.7
52.5
Students (universities)
0.3
0.8
15.0
Teachers (schools)
4.2
2.4
4.3
Other visitors
33.2
5.1
28.2
Age
19 or younger
63.1
90.0
49.7
20 to 29 years
4.2
3.2
20.2
30 to 45 years
7.2
2.8
7.7
46 to 60 years
14.4
2.7
6.9
Older than 60 years
11.0
1.3
15.5
Gender
Male
51.5
45.3
68.3
Female
48.5
54.7
31.7
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
Sample size (n)
808
900
959
LNGS,
Italy
%
82.9
0.9
4.3
11.9
76.9
7.8
}
15.3
49.0
51.0
100.0
634
The organization of the majority of visits as group visits also implies
that not necessarily all the visitors in the group actually wish to visit the
center. Nearly 20% of the visitors indicated that they had no opportunity to
opt out of the visit. This applies especially for school students, who usually
are obliged to take part in the visit as a school activity. Most visitors are
first-time visitors, but up to 10% of the visitors (e.g., school teachers, who
come with different school classes) had already visited the research center
before.
The gender distribution among the visitors is balanced, with the exception
of DESY visitors (Table 1). There, we find a rather traditional predominance
of male visitors linked to the subject area of physics, as is also found in the
advanced physics courses (so-called Physik Leistungskurse) at German
schools, for example, or for Italian and Greek university students.
The Effects of a Visit
As part of the general problem of evaluating the effects of science
communication, the analysis of the impact on nonexperts from visiting
Neresini et al. / Large Physics Research Centers in Europe 7
a center for scientific research presents great difficulties, if one takes
into account both the research aims and the methodological difficulties
involved.
First, in regard to the research aims, what exactly we are looking for is
not immediately apparent when we try to evaluate visit effects. Second,
evaluating impact is very challenging from a methodological point of view
(Gascoigne & Metcalfe, 2001; Neresini & Pellegrini, 2008; Rennie &
McClafferty, 1996; Storksdieck & Falk, 2004). As Miller (1987) put it, “If
we want people to carry away something, we ought to be able to define
what it is and measure it” (p. 125).
Specifically for the question of aims, if our purpose is to identify changes
in visitors’ scientific knowledge, it is clear that visitors are expected to answer
questions mainly derived from deficit model assumptions.
However, although visits could be considered as a tool for increasing
interest in science also based on the framework of the deficit model, at the
same time they could be regarded, for example, as an attempt to engage
people with science in order to promote their participation in shaping
scientific research processes. In the latter case, it is less important how
much knowledge can be gained by the visitors but more important what
kind of motivation can be generated or reinforced by these experiences
instead. Thus, trying to identify an increase in knowledge is not the same
as exploring whether the public is more engaged in science as a consequence
of visiting a research laboratory.
In this article, we focus on effects that are related to the aims largely
shared by all the research centers as far as their visits program is concerned.
In fact, the preliminary interviews with the PR staff made clear that all four
centers share aims such as (a) informing the public about ongoing research
activities, (b) stimulating interest in science, (c) channeling scientific
contents, and (d) encouraging a positive attitude toward research centers
and research.
Method for the Analysis of Visit Effects
In line with the aims of the visit programs at the research centers
involved in the project, the empirical research was designed to monitor different dimensions in regard to,
• Visitors’ knowledge of the research center and of the research activities
being carried out there
• Their knowledge of fundamental physics concepts
8 Science Communication
• Visitors’ image of the research center and of the research carried out at
the center
• Their interest in scientific research
The close connection between the aims and effects of the visits introduces another very important analytical dimension—whether the identified
effects are in line with the expectations of the visit organizers in general
terms, and we therefore asked ourselves what can be reasonably expected
from the way visits are currently designed and organized.
Answering this question is difficult because of its theoretical and
methodological implications and also because the research centers involved
in the project obviously pursue objectives that can partially coincide but are
nonetheless articulated differently depending on each context, organizational
structure, and type of research. For these reasons, the present article is
limited to describing mainly cognitive effects observed at the different
centers and provides some reflections on their consistency with the general
shared aims. Thus, the comparative presentation of data should not be
understood in terms of emphasizing differences among the centers—which
can be expected right from the beginning—but in terms of pointing out
similarities. Such similarities could, to the extent that they were identified,
reduce the dependency of results on the local context—that is, the specific
character of a research center and of its visits program—hence making
them more suitable for generalization. However, at the same time our
emphasis on similarities is intended to keep our analysis sensitive to
potentially striking differences among the research centers.3
Because a comparative study such as the one presented here could raise
interest in comparing and assessing the institutions involved, it is of crucial
importance to recognize that the data from our study do not represent any
kind of quality measurement of the research centers studied or their PR
activities, nor can they be regarded as an evaluation of the visit program of
the research centers. The data collected in this study provide information on
visitors’ perceptions and the effects of the visit on these perceptions.
The analysis of visit effects on the visitors uses two approaches. The first
approach follows a simple experimental logic and uses a one-factorial
design with two groups (Bortz & Döring, 2002, p. 528). Visitors were
randomly split into two subsamples of equal size. In one subsample, a
number of questions were asked before the visit (control group), whereas
in the second subsample the same questions were asked after the visit
(treatment group). Because of the random assignment of “test participants”
(visitors) to one group or the other, differences in the responses to questions
Neresini et al. / Large Physics Research Centers in Europe 9
between the two groups can be attributed to the “treatment” (i.e., the visit)
if they are statistically significant. In comparison to the possible alternative
of measuring the same variables twice in the same group of visitors—before
and after the visit—this experimental approach has an important advantage:
It rules out as an explanation for differences between the before-and-after
measurement any learning or attention effects resulting from the repeated
presentation of the same questions. The second approach we used is to
analyze the answers given by the same visitors at different times in the
survey in order to discover any changes that might have occurred and could
possibly be attributed to the visit. This approach seems to be more
straightforward than the one described before, but it has the disadvantage
that the first measurements affect the subsequent ones, for example, by
changing the interviewees’ attention structure. By using both of these
approaches to measure the effects of the visits, the disadvantages of the two
methods are compensated for to a certain degree.
Results
Effects of the Visits on Visitors’ Knowledge of the Research
Center and on the Science Carried Out at the Center
In terms of visitors’ knowledge of the features and activities of the
research center visited, the effects of the visit are quite apparent. The
questionnaire administered before and after the visit aimed at evaluating—
among other things—the knowledge of research activities carried out at the
center in focusing on how the scientific experiments were organized.4 In the
case of DESY, for example, it was asked whether the use of magnets at a
temperature of –269°C was because of security reasons or hygiene or the
need to produce extremely high magnetic fields (correct answer); in the
case of LNGS, the visitors were asked whether the location of laboratories
under the Gran Sasso Mountain was related to the need to keep the
temperature constant, to security reasons, or to the need to minimize
interference of cosmic rays (correct answer). Table 2 shows that a clear
increase in correct responses was observed after the visit.
A clear trend toward an increase in correct answers is also evident for
questions about the purposes of the research activities and the actual contents
of research activities carried out at the research centers. As Tables 3 and
4 show, this is a fairly consolidated result because a consistent pattern
emerges for the items used for all research centers.
10 Science Communication
Table 2
Knowledge About Topics Related to the Research Done by
the Research Center: Comparison Between Before the Visit
Subsample (B) and After the Visit Subsample (A)
DEMOKRITOS, Greece
DESY, Germany
Correct answer
Wrong answer
Don’t know
Total
Sample size (n)
BA
%
%
38.1
61.9
—
100.0
450
65.8*
34.2
—
100.0
450
BA
%
%
53.5
9.4
37.1
100.0
480
70.4*
10.2
19.4
100.0
479
LNGS, Italy
BA
%
%
65.7
18.8
15.5
100.0
309
94.6*
4.4
1.0
100.0
313
Note: Data about CERN are not available. Questions posed (English translations of the original
text): DEMOKRITOS: “The research center studies subjects that are relevant to the following
sciences: biology, physics, seismology (correct answers), informatics (wrong answer).” DESY:
“Why does DESY use magnets at a temperature of –269°C? To produce extremely high
magnetic fields (correct answer), for security reasons (wrong answer), to keep them free from
bacteria (wrong answer).” LNGS: “Why does LNGS carry out its experiments underground? To
minimize interference from cosmic rays (correct answer), for security reasons (wrong answer),
because these experiments require a constant temperature (wrong answer).”
*p < .001 (adjusted level of significance according to the Bonferroni method of multiple
hypotheses testing; see Neter, Wasserman, & Kutner, 1990).
With a view to the implications this could have for the learning process
activated by the visit, it is interesting to note that not only correct responses
tend to increase after the visit but in some cases also incorrect responses as
well, although to a lesser degree, whereas the values for “don’t know”
consistently decrease after the visit (Tables 2 to 4). Thus, it is clear that a
considerable number of those visitors who are uncertain before the visit
give correct answers after the visit, but some of them move to the wrong
response (range = 0.2% to 11.5% among the research centers). For these
visitors, the visit has the effect of reducing doubts while increasing errors
at the same time. This is a problematic change because it is known that
having doubts and being open to doubts is one of the preliminary conditions
for learning. However, despite this shift from “don’t know” answers to
incorrect answers, the data confirm a clear increase of knowledge about the
research center and the research done there after the visit.
Neresini et al. / Large Physics Research Centers in Europe 11
Table 3
Level of Knowledge About the Purposes of the Research Activities
at the Research Centers (Items 1 to 3): Comparison Between Before
the Visit Subsample (B) and After the Visit Subsample (A)
CERN, Switzerland/ DEMOKRITOS, DESY, FranceGreeceGermany
LNGS, Italy
BA
%
%
BA
%
%
BA
%
%
BA
%
%
Item 1
Correct answer
39.7
86.4*
17.7
46.2*
54.4
78.9*
44.4
Wrong answer
5.8
3.1
14.7
26.2
2.1
1.7
2.9
Don’t know
54.4
10.4
67.7
27.6
43.5
19.3
52.7
Item 2
Correct answer
43.6
80.2*
41.6
56.8*
53.8
74.3*
54.8
Wrong answer
23.4
9.4
5.5
14.7
13.8
5.0
19.4
Don’t know
33.0
10.4
52.9
28.5
32.5
20.7
25.8
Item 3
Correct answer
69.9
92.2*
16.8
58.7*
78.3
86.2*
71.3
Wrong answer
2.7
1.8
6.2
8.9
1.5
1.7
3.5
Don’t know
27.5
6.0
77.0
32.4
20.2
12.1
25.2
Total
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0
Sample size (n)
404
404
450
450
479
480
310
82.0*
0.6
17.4
74.3*
14.0
11.7
82.6*
6.8
10.6
100.0
310
Note: Questions posed (English translations): CERN, LNGS: Item 1: “The center was set up
during the Second World War to study nuclear energy” (correct answer = no). Item 2: “The
main purpose of the center is to study nuclear fusion” (correct answer = no). Item 3: “The main
purpose of the center is to discover the ultimate components of matter” (correct answer = yes).
DEMOKRITOS: Item 1: “The center’s aim is combining research with industry and production” (correct answer = true). Item 2: “The center makes experiments to study new materials”
(correct answer = true). Item 3: “The center has been in operation since 1990” (correct answer =
false). DESY: Item 1: “DESY was founded during the Second World War to study nuclear
weapons” (correct answer = no). Item 2: “DESY’s main purpose is to study nuclear fusion”
(correct answer = no). Item 3: “DESY’s main purpose is to do research on the smallest particles
of matter” (correct answer = yes).
*p < .001 (adjusted level of significance according to the Bonferroni method of multiple
hypotheses testing).
Increase in Knowledge About Some Fundamentals of Physics
Another type of possible knowledge effects of the visits concerns the
complex area of learning about fundamental physics concepts. It appears
justified to expect an increase in visitors’ knowledge in this respect because
12 Science Communication
Table 4
Level of Knowledge About the Content of Research Carried Out at
the Research Centers (Items 1 to 3): Comparison Between Before the
Visit Subsample (B) and After the Visit Subsample (A)
CERN, Switzerland/ DEMOKRITOS, DESY, FranceGreeceGermany
LNGS, Italy
BA
%
%
BA
%
%
BA
%
%
BA
%
%
Item 1
Correct answer
33.1
56.1*
40.0
78.6*
47.0
67.9*
23.7
Wrong answer
33.1
29.9
13.9
12.6
16.5
11.7
38.5
Don’t know
33.8
13.9
46.1
8.7
36.5
20.4
37.8
Item 2
Correct answer
62.9
85.2*
42.3
89.8*
58.7
65.2*
39.2
Wrong answer
8.6
9.1
7.1
3.7
10.6
15.0
22.5
Don’t know
28.4
5.7
50.6
6.5
30.7
19.8
38.3
Item 3
Correct answer
65.1
74.7*
55.9
59.2*
43.8
57.7*
52.1
Wrong answer
5.1
7.5
1.4
3.7
6.1
12.5
11.7
Don’t know
29.8
17.9
42.7
37.1
50.1
29.8
36.2
Total
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0 100.0
100.0
Sample size (n)
404
404
450
450
479
480
310
59.7*
17.7
22.6
66.1*
20.2
13.7
89.0*
4.2
6.8
100.0
309
Note: Questions posed (English translations): CERN: Item 1: “The center develops new methods of using nuclear energy” (correct answer = no). Item 2: “The center makes experiments to
understand how the universe evolved” (correct answer = yes) Item 3: “CERN uses particles
accelerators to recreate Big Bang conditions in the laboratory” (correct answer = yes).
DEMOKRITOS: Item 1: “The main purpose of this research center is to study nuclear fusion”
(correct answer = false). Item 2: “One of the main purposes of this research center is to study
subjects that are relevant to health” (correct answer = true). Item 3: “This research center collaborates with other centers all over the world” (correct answer = true). DESY: Item 1: “DESY
explores new methods of using nuclear energy” (correct answer = no). Item 2: “DESY makes
experiments to increase knowledge on how the universe evolved” (correct answer = yes). Item 3:
“DESY produces anti-matter particles” (correct answer = yes). LNGS: Item 1: “The center
develops new methods of using nuclear energy” (correct answer = no). Item 2: “The center
makes experiments to understand how the universe evolved” (correct answer = yes). Item 3:
“The location of the center minimises interference from cosmic rays” (correct answer = yes).
*p < .001 (adjusted level of significance according to the Bonferroni method of multiple
hypotheses testing).
during the visit they receive information and explanations about concepts
that they have the opportunity to see applied in experiments and can then
familiarize themselves with these concepts from several points of view.
Neresini et al. / Large Physics Research Centers in Europe 13
In general, it is possible to say that after the visit some positive effects
can also be noticed as far as this dimension is concerned, but these effects
vary and are not so evident in all the cases (see Table 5).
In certain cases, however, unclear—and to some extent also negative—
effects were identified, similar to the ones described above for the effects
on knowledge about the research center. For instance, the percentage of
wrong responses about quarks among LNGS visitors increased after the
visit (from 13.3% to 22.4%), and the “don’t know” responses also increased
in some cases (for the question on electrons in all research centers). In a
similar fashion, the percentage of correct responses to the question about
electrons at DESY and about the structure of atoms at DEMOKRITOS
decreased after the visit.
These contradictory results can be attributed to a variety of reasons.
First, it should be taken into account that not all topics are presented with
the same intensity during the visits, and this can partly account for some
of the differences. For instance, explanations offered by the guides and
documentation available on neutrinos at LNGS were clearly more compre­
hensive than those regarding electrons, as the former play a crucial role in
the understanding of the LNGS experiments.
Second, variations in the initial understanding of a topic might influence
the information gained from the visits in a significant way. In the case of
DEMOKRITOS, for example, science teachers who accompanied a visitor
group explained after the visit that some students who were familiar with
the incomplete model taught at school that is restricted to the level of the
nucleus description (with the electrons revolving around it) gave a correct
answer before the visit, while after the visit these same students produced
either false or “don’t know” answers, possibly as a result of the confusion
caused by the description of a more detailed model of the atomic structure
including some subatomic particles such as quarks, neutrinos, gluons, and
W+, W–, Ζ 0 bosons presented at the TANDEM accelerator.
Third, it is possible that some of the visitors interviewed through the
questionnaire at the end of a visit, after having received such rich stimuli
and information, felt almost obliged to abandon the more diplomatic “don’t
know” answer they gave before the visit and tried to give a response despite
still being uncertain.
Fourth, because the majority of visitors at all four research centers are
students at upper secondary schools, part of the variations across the centers
could be because of the different structures and the treatment of topics in
the school curricula of the different countries.
14 Science Communication
Table 5
Visitors’ Knowledge of Some Fundamentals of Physics (Items 1 to 4):
Comparison Between Before the Visit Subsample (B) and After the
Visit Subsample (A)
DEMOKRITOS, Greece
DESY, Germany
BA
%
%
BA
%
%
LNGS, Italy
BA
%
%
Item 1: Electron (+)
Correct answer
54.2
47.1*
41.9
39.7*
72.4
Wrong answer
3.6
4.2
6.3
7.9
3.2
Ambiguous answer
16.0
14.7
31.7
29.6
13.6
Don’t know
26.2
34.0
20.2
22.8
10.4
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
Sample size (n)
450
450
480
479
315
Item 2: Quark (++)
Correct answer
0.0
1.3
33.2
58.1*
28.0
Wrong answer
3.6
10.0
14.8
5.8
13.3
Ambiguous answer
2.0
14.0
20.5
17.3
20.9
Don’t know
94.4
74.7
31.5
18.8
37.8
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
Sample size (n)
450
450
479
480
315
Item 3 (+++)
—a
—
Correct answer
6.9
7.3
40.1
Wrong answer
17.8
17.6
18.0
Ambiguous answer
7.6
6.0
7.9
Don’t know
67.8
69.1
34.1
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
Sample size (n)
450
450
317
Item 4 (++++)
—
—
Correct answer
2.9
7.8*
4.7
Wrong answer
9.8
12.0
15.5
Ambiguous answer
16.0
40.9
6.0
Don’t know
71.3
39.3
73.8
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
Sample size (n)
450
450
317
69.2*
6.2
7.1
17.5
100.0
314
30.2
22.4
10.0
37.4
100.0
314
57.7*
10.1
9.8
22.4
100.0
317
15.5*
31.2
7.3
46.1
100.0
317
Note: Data from CERN not available. Questions posed (English translations): What is . . .
(Items 1 to 4)? (+) DEMOKRITOS = structure of the atom; (++) DEMOKRITOS = radiotherapy; (+++) DEMOKRITOS = half-life time, LNGS = neutrino; (++++) DEMOKRITOS =
particle accelerator, LNGS = cosmic rays.
a. Question not asked.
*p < .001 (adjusted level of significance according to the Bonferroni method of multiple
hypotheses testing).
Neresini et al. / Large Physics Research Centers in Europe 15
Finally, another relevant factor could be that visits—especially school
students’ visits—are often not prepared for by introductory lessons or preli­
minary documents. For DEMOKRITOS and DESY visitors, this is the case
for 50% of the sample; for CERN visitors, this is the case for 35% and at
LNGS for 22%. Given that many researchers have stressed the importance
of previsit and follow-up activities (Kisiel, 2003), it could be argued that
this lack can have a negative impact on the learning of scientific concepts
during the visit.
Visitors’ Image of the Research Center
and the Research Conducted There
The visit programs, regarded as public relations activities by the research
centers, are often connected with the aim of positively influencing the
visitors’ image of the research center or even creating such a positive image
among visitors.
In our study, we considered image to be a concept similar to that of
attitude, following the Fishbein-Ajzen model (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and
understood image to be a multidimensional representation of an object on
relevant evaluative dimensions, which implies—for each of the dimensions—a
position on a bipolar scale of good versus bad. The visitors’ images of the
research centers and their research first of all represent the visitors’ subjective
normative beliefs. They are dependent on the characteristics of the research
centers as well as on the visitors’ perceptions, expectations, and assessments,
which will vary among the groups of visitors in different countries. We thus
do not interpret these images as quality indicators of the research centers or
their outreach activities. We measured two different images by using the
methodological approach of the semantic differential. For each of the two
image profiles, six pairs of contrasting adjectives with a scale in between
were presented to the visitors in the questionnaires before and immediately
after the visit. The respondents could then indicate on a 7-step scale the
degree to which the contrasting adjectives described the research center
itself and, in a similar but separate question, the research done at the center.
Marks between the ends of the scale meant that to a certain degree both of
the adjectives apply. Marks placed in closer proximity to one of the two
contrasting adjectives at either end of the scale indicate that visitors judged
this description to more accurately reflect their opinion. The image profile is
then determined by the mean scores of the scales: Low scores mean negative
evaluation, and high scores mean positive evaluation.5
16 Science Communication
Figure 1
Image of Research Centers
se cre tive
CERN (CH / F)
o p en
se cre tive
DEMOKRITOS (GR)
o p en
u n tru stw o rth y
tru stw o rth y
u n tru stw o rth y
tru stw o rth y
in co m p e te n t
co m p e te n t
in co m p e te n t
co m p e te n t
h a rm fu l
b e ne ficial
w a ste fu l
e co no m ica l
risky
-1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
se cre tive
1.5 2.0 2.5
DESY (D)
sa fe
o p en
b e ne ficial
h a rm fu l
e co no m ica l
w a ste fu l
risky
-1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
se cre tive
1.5 2.0 2.5
LNGS (I)
sa fe
o p en
u n tru stw o rth y
tru stw o rth y
u n tru stw o rth y
tru stw o rth y
in co m p e te n t
co m p e te n t
in co m p e te n t
co m p e te n t
h a rm fu l
b e ne ficial
w a ste fu l
risky
-1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
e co no m ica l
1.5 2.0 2.5
sa fe
B efore visit
b e ne ficial
h a rm fu l
e co no m ica l
w a ste fu l
risky
-1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
1.5 2.0 2.5
sa fe
A fter visit
When comparing the image profiles for the research centers measured
after the visit to those measured before, we notice that the general pattern
indicates a strong similarity (Figure 1). The differences in some dimensions,
which indicate effects of the visit, are generally moderate and not consistent
across research centers. Furthermore, they show negative as well as positive
image changes. The aggregated image indices (Table 6, first row) confirm
the dominant impression of similarity: the images of only two research
centers changed significantly—one in the positive, the other in the negative
direction—but even the changes that are statistically significant are rather
small when compared to the range of the scales.
For three of the four research centers, very limited effects can also be
observed in regard to the image of the research done at the centers (Figure 2).
Profiles measured before and after the visit are almost identical for three
centers and result in statistically insignificant changes of the image index
(Table 6, second row). The image of the research done at one of the centers,
however, seems to be negatively affected by the visit because the image
17
0.17**
0.03
1.20
1.07
Statistical significance of difference (t test): **p < .01. ***p < .001.
1.22
0.92
1.05
0.88
Image Index 1 “research center”
Image Index 2 “research”
1.23
0.80
0.03
–0.28***
1.27
0.68
1.35
0.81
0.08
0.14
BA
M
M
Diff.
BA
M
M
Diff.
BA
M
M
Diff.
CERN, Switzerland/France
DEMOKRITOS, Greece
DESY, Germany
1.03
0.85
0.85
0.77
BA
M
M
Diff.
–0.18**
–0.08
LNGS, Italy
Table 6
Impact of Visits on Visitors’ Image of the Research Center (Index 1) and on Image of the
Research Done at the Center (Index 2): Comparison Between Before the Visit Subsample
(B) and After the Visit Subsample (A)
18 Science Communication
Figure 2
Image of Research Done at Research Centers
CERN (CH / F)
outdated
harmful
poor
interest -driven
beneficial
harmful
beneficial
first class
poor
first class
exciting
boring
-2.0 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
outdated
DESY (D)
u p-to-date
outdated
economical
expensive
DEMOKRITOS (GR)
up-to-date
independent
economical
expensive
exciting
boring
independent
interest -driven
-2.0 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
LNGS (I)
up-to-date
outdated
harmful
beneficial
harmful
beneficial
poor
first class
poor
first class
economical
expensive
boring
interest -driven
exciting
-2.0 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
independent
B efore visit
expensive
boring
u p-to-date
economical
exciting
interest -driven
independent
-2.0 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
A fter visit
profile measured after the visit is more negative in four of the six dimensions
and is particularly distinct for the dimension of “boring-exciting.” The
image index for that center thus shows a significant difference between the
aggregate images measured before and after the visit.
The conclusions that can be drawn from these results on the visit effects
for the image profiles are twofold: Most effects are relatively small, and the
effects are inconsistent in regard to the direction of the image changes.
Visitors’ Interest in Scientific Research
As is the case with other activities that fall under the heading of “public
communication of science,” a contribution toward raising interest in science
would also be expected in the case of visits to research centers.
This expectation is in fact made explicit in the definition of the objectives
of the visits program by the staff responsible for these programs at the
research centers studied. It is therefore particularly important to understand
the extent to which such an effect can be generated by the visits. Figure 3
Neresini et al. / Large Physics Research Centers in Europe 19
Figure 3
Level of Interest in Scientific Research: Comparison Between Before
the Visit Subsample (B) and After the Visit Subsample (A)
B efore the visit
A fter the visit
Very/rather strong interest in scientific research
90%
80%
70%
± 2 standard errors
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
CERN
(CH/F)
DEMOKRITOS
(GR)
DESY
(D)
LNGS
(I)
summarizes the data collected on this aspect at the four centers, again
comparing the situation before and after the visit.
We can notice a certain decline of interest in science during the visit,
with the exception of DEMOKRITOS visitors. This can be regarded as a
rather surprising result.
As one likely reason, we can imagine some kind of saturation of the
visitors’ interest in science directly after the visit because they had just
completed an activity directed at “feeding” their interest in science.
Another possibility could be that the visitors felt rather overwhelmed or
exhausted by the encounter with science during the visit, either because of
a cognitive overload by the new information they had encountered or
because of a partial deflation of the mystical image of science that they
might have had before the visit or some kind of disillusionment about
science they might have experienced during the visit.
We could also assume that contact with real science—that is, with the
routine and not exciting aspect or aspects of scientific work during the
visit—is the cause of this effect. And given that science is not always a
20 Science Communication
Figure 4
Intention of Becoming a Scientist: Comparison Between Before the
Visit Subsample (B) and After the Visit Subsample (A)
Scientist, not physicist (before)
Scientist, not physicist (after)
Physicist (before the visit)
Physicist (after the visit)
Would like to become a scientist
50%
45%
± 2 standard errors
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
CERN
(CH/F)
DEMOKRITOS
(GR)
DESY
(D)
LNGS
(I)
passionate and interesting activity, this is not necessarily a negative effect
because we can see this decreased interest as a necessary counterbalance
to the method of presenting science to a nonexpert public as primarily
entertainment.
In the case of school students as a major target group at all research
centers, we were also interested in their motivation to take up a career in
science before and directly after the visit.
After the visit, the number of school students who did not want to
become a scientist decreased (Figure 4). This seems to be a rather positive
effect from the visit, while the slightly lower number of students who
wanted to become, in particular, a physicist after the visit (around 14% at
all research centers) comes as a surprise, given that they had just concluded
a visit to a physics laboratory.6
Therefore, the visit does not seem to motivate more school students to
become physicists but rather to raise their interest in a science profession in
general.
Neresini et al. / Large Physics Research Centers in Europe 21
From this perspective, despite some apparent inconsistency in results,
visits seem to represent one of the possible strategies, of course also
combined with others, for counteracting the problem that has come to be
known in recent years as “the crisis of scientific vocations.”7
In all of the research centers examined, in fact, visits seem to result in a
general increase of interest in a scientific career on the part of school
students, albeit not as significantly as expected.
It should be noted, however, that the data here could be slightly
underestimated because of the fact that the choice of a certain career seems
a more specific option than enrolling for a university course—because it
also includes those who do not intend to go to university. On the other hand,
positive effects identified here should not be overestimated. It is important
to remember not only that such effects will be reduced over time—a feature
common to other cognitive effects—but also that the actual “translation” of
these attitudes into behavior is far from straightforward.
Discussion
The complex design of our study of effects enabled us to identify and
measure several primarily short-term effects of visits to the four European
research centers included in the study, and while some of these effects
correspond well to the general expectations that the organizers of the visit
programs would, for example, attribute to such public relations activities,
some of the other effects we found are rather unexpected and require further
analysis.
The presentation of an extensive amount of scientific and technical
information to mostly nonexpert visitor groups, many of them school
students, usually forms a major part of the visits to all the four research
centers studied. When looking for possible changes in visitors’ knowledge
during the visit, on the one hand, we focused our attention on some
fundamental concepts of science or physics. We found what could be
described as a short-term learning effect of the visit, namely, that more
visitors were able to correctly describe the scientific concepts after the visit.8
At the same time, but to a lesser degree, the number of false answers also
increased. As similar effects were observed for other areas of knowledge we
had asked about, for example, effects on visitors’ knowledge about the
research center itself and the research done there, the results confirm a
certain pattern: The visits succeed in improving some visitors’ knowledge.
Simultaneously, the results reveal a tendency for some visitors to give
22 Science Communication
incorrect answers after their visit, which is perhaps because of their giving
up uncertainty at the price of false certainty, which unfortunately could be a
hindrance to their further learning. Alternatively, we can also assume that
some visitors are apparently confused by the visit, possibly as a consequence
of the amount and content of the information received during the visit or
as a consequence of their knowledge before the visit. This is not surprising
if we consider that knowledge is not a matter of storing discrete pieces
of information in our mind but is on the contrary a complex process of
framing and reframing information, a process that, on the one hand, reduces
uncertainty and, on the other hand, opens new possibilities and therefore
also introduces new uncertainties.
One of the intended effects of the visit programs is to increase the
visitors’ interest in science, and in this context we also analyzed our results
for school students as a main target group of the visits, with respect to
whether the visit increases their motivation to later become a physicist or a
scientist. Although the effects may be different when analyzed in the long
term, in all cases studied except one (DEMOKRITOS), a certain short-term
decline of visitors’ interest in science can be noticed between the time
before and the time after the visit. In this respect, a kind of “saturation
effect” can be hypothesized: As we learned from our qualitative studies
carried out in the IN3B project, the visitors can feel rather overwhelmed or
exhausted by the encounter with science (or specifically physics) during the
visit, and after the visit there could be a feeling of their interest in science
being sated for the time being.
When school students were asked before and after their visit about their
motivation to later become a scientist or physicist, after the visit the number
of school students who claimed to have no intention of becoming a scientist
as a career decreases, and as a consequence the proportion of those taking
a science career into consideration increases; this positive effect, however,
is lower in the case of school students’ motivation to become a physicist.
Therefore, beside the fact that the visits seem to reveal some lack of
attractiveness concerning the work or profession of a physicist, an effect
that should be analyzed in more detail, the visits seem to function well in
motivating more school students to consider a science profession in general.
This means that the visit programs and the research institutions behind
them indeed play an important part in motivating young people to aspire to
a science career. This effect becomes even more important if one considers
that the vast majority of the students are in the upper secondary school, a
level at which they have already fixed their future career orientations.
Similar motivational effects have been also observed in other contexts when
Neresini et al. / Large Physics Research Centers in Europe 23
scientists meet with school students. Specifically, a survey of over 1,000
scientists and engineers, conducted under the auspices of the Royal Society
in the United Kingdom in 2004, showed that just over half (52%) had been
influenced in their choice of career by a visit to a scientist’s or engineer’s
place of work, and nearly one fourth (23%) had been influenced by a
scientist or engineer visiting their school.9
Contrary, though, to some initial aims and hopes of staff responsible for
the design of the visit programs, visits to research centers do not seem to
have a massive—positive or negative—impact on the image of the research
center visited or the research carried out there. In fact, the visits seem to
have only a small and unclear effect on the visitors’ images and attitudes.
We assume that several reasons contribute to quite clearly failing to achieve
the desired effect and that primarily the complexity of the stimuli the
visitors receive during the visit leads to a kind of leveling. First, we have to
realize that to nonexperts the research centers tend to represent rather
strange and perplexing environments, and being exposed to this environment
possibly promotes mixed feelings. In the research centers studied, the scale
of the research in terms of dimensions, costs, time, and complexity is
almost beyond imagination to nonexperts, and so it could, on the one hand,
be very impressive, but perhaps it might also raise doubts about the value
of such (publicly funded) research and might lead to questions of how
average citizens benefit from such research, especially if it is taken into
consideration that scientific research competes with other pressing needs in
society for public funding. Furthermore, it is nearly impossible for nonexperts
to develop a deep understanding of the science during their visit. This can
lead to visitors looking with admiration at the scientists who deal with all
these complex things or else even experiencing a feeling of inferiority
toward science that is so difficult to understand. Finally, because the
creation and modification of images and attitudes are complex, primarily
long-term processes, a single activity such as a visit to a research center
might result in some transformation of the existing image, and our results
indeed show some minor changes in the perception of research centers after
the visit. But—based on these arguments and the results from our study—we
have to conclude that visits to the research centers do not necessarily lead
to a more positive image among the visitors. They rather seem to serve to
stabilize visitors’ preattitudes, which are often already generally positive,
rather than creating a positive image or reversing a negative one.
We can see several implications following from these results on visit
effects.
24 Science Communication
The potential of the visit program is its uniqueness within the context of
different public communication activities such as public lectures, science
festivals, cafés scientifiques, and so on: A visit to a research center is—at
least to a major extent—an encounter with real science in the making, a
glance at daily life in science by inviting people in (instead of reaching out)
and allowing them to see for themselves what authentic science is like. In
this special encounter with scientific reality, however, there can be several
kinds of difficult factors as well: For example, during visits, it can be very
noisy in the experimentation halls, sometimes the locations do not look
very modern or tidy, the science presented may be confusing or boring or
far too complicated to understand in a short period, and sometimes nothing
seems to happen because not much from the ongoing experiments can
really be seen during the visit. And there can be a tendency to focus the
research center’s presentations on a rather selective view of science, not
tailoring the presented information properly to the interests or needs of
mainly nonexpert members of the public or expecting learning effects that
can hardly be achieved by the visit programs. However, despite the difficul­
ties that visitors may encounter during their visits, our results confirm that
the confrontation with this scientific reality, and not with a reproduction of
it, seems to be a unique and invaluable asset for visitors, even if it does not
mean a “trip to paradise” and can at times be a dry and dusty road for them
to tread. This appreciation of the visits can be concluded from the facts that
in our IN3B studies the large majority of visitors declared themselves
highly satisfied after the visit, that for more than 90% of the visitors their
visit was an opportunity to see what kind of research is done at the research
centers, and that more than 70% of the visitors confirmed that the visit had
been pleasant and interesting.
Furthermore, the visitors’ appreciation of an encounter with “science in
reality” or, in other words, of authenticity as the crucial quality of the visits
also seems to interrelate with visitors’ views that the visit programs are seen
as a kind of demonstration of the research center’s openness to the public
and as a way of accounting for the public funds they receive. And it appears
quite reasonable that these visitors’ views are also linked to the visitors’
generally high appreciation of research and the research center, which we
found not only before but also after the visit.
Some intriguing ambiguities that we encountered in a few of our results
about the visit effects again stress the necessity of considering science
communication as a very complex task. Nor, for example, when considering
the effects, is it as straightforward as science communicators sometimes
might wish to create a positive image of science, and our results do not
Neresini et al. / Large Physics Research Centers in Europe 25
confirm that a—however comprehensive, and so on—presentation of scientific
knowledge, when implicitly following the deficit model’s educational goal,
is able to change the audience’s attitude toward science (Dickson, 2005).
From the perspective of the public communication of science, this
ambiguity or even lack of some desired effects of the visit may raise some
doubts about the value of the visit program for the research centers. However,
as indicated above, for us the results first and foremost point to interesting
dimensions for further analysis rather than questioning the value of the visit
program. For example, an improved understanding of visit effects instead of
the previous “black box” view can support a reconsideration of the goals for
such a public communication program. If the visits do not primarily serve the
purpose of substantially changing the visitors’ image, other meaningful
purposes that seem to be confirmed by visitors’ appreciation may be to offer
access for different publics to the authentic reality of the centers’ research and
scientific production, for example, to bring school students into contact with
researchers at their workplace, to explain the fascinating and spectacular
dimensions as well as the routine and perhaps even difficult sides of science
and research to different publics, and to keep in touch with the public from
the region around the research center. Reconsidering PR expectations for a
public visit program and defining realistic goals as a consequence are
therefore two of the means for practical improvement that we suggested in a
summary of possible improvements for the visits.10 At the same time, this
example also places the public visit program in the context of other public
communication activities because differentiated and achievable goals can be
regarded as equally important for all these activities, not only for the visit
programs. Furthermore, our findings lead us to assume that the study of
effects of other public communi­cations activities will be equally worthwhile
and may lead to some “surprises” similar to our study results.
Thus, from the broader perspective of science and society and with a
view to various new public communication activities that have been
developed in a number of European countries to improve relations and
communication between science and society (e.g., national science weeks,
science festivals, “physics on stage,” “Wissenschaft im Dialog,” role
models for scientists,11 science labs for school students), visits to research
centers represent a more old-fashioned activity of direct communication
with different publics. However, by giving different publics an authentic
glimpse of the production of scientific knowledge and by responding to and
encouraging their interest in science production, the public visit programs
are unique and are very important within this canon of public communication
26 Science Communication
activities. And as a means of direct communication, they also offer great
potential for dialogue and debate with different publics.
Notes
1. For major differences between visits to science museums and visits to research centers,
see Dimopoulos and Koulaidis (2006).
2. The project IN3B (INside the Big Black Box) was funded by the European Commission
under the VI Framework Programme. The following collaborated in this project: Monica De
Pasquale-Jacobsson and Paola Catapano from CERN, Geneva; Vasilis Koulaidis, Kostas
Dimopoulos, and Lida Arnellou from the University of Patras; Stella Efthimiopoulou from the
Greek National Research Center DEMOKRITOS, Athens; Federico Neresini, Massimiano
Bucchi, Giuseppe Pellegrini, and Francesca Forno from Observa–Science in Society, Vicenza;
Roberta Antolini from Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso LNGS, L’Aquila; Monika Kallfass
and Hans Peter Peters from Forschungszentrum Jülich, Programme Group MUT, Jülich; and
Heiner Westermann from Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg.
3. This is the reason why we preferred to analyze the centers as separate case studies;
therefore, we did not include an analysis across the centers and did not produce an aggregate
data set. This approach is justified by the differences among the centers in some important
dimensions that account to a certain extent for the variable results across the research centers,
such as visit programs, types of visitors, type of physics research, and different teaching background for the school students.
4. In the following tables, the subsamples of visitors questioned before the visit are
designated B for “before the visit”; the subsamples who were interviewed after the visit are
termed A for “after the visit.”
5. In order to prevent response sets from introducing a systematic error, in about half of
the adjective pairs the negative adjective was placed on the right, and for the other half on the
left-hand side. For better readability, we recoded the values such that high values always mean
a positive image and low values a negative image. Furthermore, we recoded the values such
that the score of 0 represents the mathematical middle of the scale. In this article, we present
the results using recoded values. With some caution (because the scales are not calibrated for
a “neutral” middle), we can assume that negative values represent negative evaluations and
positive values represent positive evaluations.
6. In the case of DEMOKRITOS, biology laboratories are also part of the visit.
7. This expression is usually used to indicate the fact that, since the 1980s, the progressive
decline of enrollments in university science and technology programs has become a perceived
serious problem in Europe and other industrialized countries (Eurobarometer 55.2, 2001).
8. For a general discussion of the conditions for learning during such visits, see
Dimopoulos and Koulaidis (2006).
9. For more details, see http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?tip=1&id=2789.
10. In our final report on the IN3B project, we suggested a number of practical improvements
for the visit programs that are mainly based on the results of our qualitative studies of the IN3B
project. The report is available at http://www.observa.it/public/docs/IN3Breport.zip.
11. Such a scheme is presented by the U.K. Royal Society at http://royalsociety.org/page
.asp?tip=1&id=2875.
Neresini et al. / Large Physics Research Centers in Europe 27
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28 Science Communication
Federico Neresini, PhD, teaches social research methodology and science, technology,
and society at the University of Padua. His main research interests are in the area of the
sociology of science, in particular public communication of science, social representations
of science, and citizens’ participation in decision-making processes about scientific and
technical issues.
Kostas Dimopoulos, PhD, is an associate professor of learning materials in the Department
of Social and Educational Policy, University of Peloponnese. He also teaches didactics of science at the Hellenic Open University. His current research interests concern the image of
science and technology presented by the mass media as well as developing science communication and education materials for nonexperts.
Monika Kallfass is a social scientist and senior researcher at Forschungszentrum Jülich,
Germany. Her research areas include public communication of science and technology and
science PR.
Hans Peter Peters, PhD, is a senior researcher at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany, and
adjunct professor of science journalism at the Free University of Berlin. His research
focuses on public communication of science and technology, particularly on the sciencemedia interface.