An Instrument for Assessing Scientists’ Written Skills in Public Communication of Science

Abstract

This article describes the development of the first tool for measuring scientists’ written skills in public communication of science. It includes the rationale for establishing learning goals in seven areas: clarity and language, content, knowledge organization, style, analogy, narrative, and dialogue, as well as the questions designed to assess these goals. The skills testing is primarily designed for assessing written communication skills and can be used in many science communication training contexts. It can serve as a baseline survey, as a formative assessment, or in summative pretest/posttest evaluations. The article provides detailed criteria for analyzing the results of the instrument as well as findings from baseline data collected from science graduate and undergraduate students.