Impact and Effectiveness of Science Communication Training in the Honours Life Sciences Program at McMaster University

Abstract

Proper training in science communication (scicomm) skills are consistently falling short of requirements in higher education. This highlights the need to examine a curriculum as a whole as opposed to a course level view. This study investigates whether or not students in their current undergraduate level are comfortable with performing various scicomm skills, in addition to exploring if the dedicated scicomm courses are effectively teaching students the necessary skills. We administered a survey to students on topics regarding scicomm, and asked them to rate their level of comfort, agreement, ranking of importance, and open-ended questions. Four scicomm skills that had the greatest increase in comfort; Argumentative Writing (12%), Literature Review (15%), Public Lecture- Style Presentation (19%), and Oral Presentation (30%). Alternatively, four scicomm skills had the greatest increase in discomfort; Debate (15%), Audio (18%), Policy Communication (19%), and Public Debate (22%). Upon completion of the scicomm courses, there was an increase in comfort for; oral science communication (22%); selecting and using the appropriate written, oral, and multimedia tools (24%); communicating science in written forms (26%); and personal knowledge of written, oral, and multimedia tools (50%). A small sample size, missing data (voluntary questions), omittance of Life Sciences research seminar courses, and uncertainty if academic level implied one took the course(s) in the same year, were limitations . These findings can inform changes to the existing curriculum in order to facilitate the development of scicomm skills for science students as they progress through their undergraduate degrees.