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Science Communication
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Exploring a Black Box

Cross-National Study of Visit Effects on Visitors to Large Physics Research Centers in Europe

Federico Neresini

University of Padova, Italy

Kostas Dimopoulos

University of Peloponnese, Greece

Monika Kallfass

Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany

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.

Key Words: public visits • research center • cross-national study • short-term learning effects

This version was published on June 1, 2009

Science Communication, Vol. 30, No. 4, 506-533 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1075547009332650
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