Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Microbiology, School of Life Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
La Trobe Learning and Teaching, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Adv Physiol Educ. 2021 Jun 1;45(2):281-289. doi: 10.1152/advan.00016.2020.
Expert educators in science argue that science graduates are often lacking skills in effectively communicating scientific information to lay audiences. To address this, we designed a project, Communicating Disease, for final-year undergraduate human pathophysiology students. Students chose a disease, a relevant nonscientific target audience, and a mode of communication and produced a communiqué designed to educate the audience on the pathophysiology of the disease. Separately, students justified their choice of disease and target audience. Upon completion of the project, students completed an anonymous questionnaire, and their submitted work was analyzed. Our study demonstrated that students thought it was important to learn how to effectively communicate science to a lay audience and felt that the project had supported them in developing knowledge and skills that enabled them to do so. Students were adequately challenged, and most students gave their best effort to the project, indicating a high level of engagement. Evaluation of student performance was consistent with the students' own perceptions and showed that most students communicated the pathophysiology effectively to the target audience and appropriately justified their choice of disease and target audience. Nevertheless, opportunities for improvement with some aspects of communication, production quality, and creativity were evident. This model is suitable for a range of scientific disciplines to engage students in developing their ability to communicate scientific information to lay audiences-a skill that it can be argued is vital for improving the scientific literacy of our community at large.
科学领域的专家教育家认为，科学专业的毕业生通常缺乏向非专业受众有效传达科学信息的技能。针对这一问题，我们为人体生理学专业的本科应届毕业生设计了一个名为“疾病传播”的项目。学生们选择一种疾病、一个相关的非科学目标受众，以及一种交流方式，然后制作一份旨在向受众普及该疾病生理学知识的通讯稿。此外，学生们还需要为自己选择的疾病和目标受众进行辩护。项目完成后，学生们填写了一份匿名调查问卷，同时我们还对他们提交的作品进行了分析。我们的研究表明，学生们认为学习如何向非专业受众有效地传达科学知识非常重要，并且认为该项目帮助他们获得了相关的知识和技能。学生们都受到了充分的挑战，大多数学生都为该项目付出了最大的努力，这表明他们的参与度很高。学生表现的评估与学生自己的认知相符，表明大多数学生能够有效地向目标受众传达疾病生理学知识，并且能够恰当地为自己选择的疾病和目标受众进行辩护。然而，在某些沟通技巧、制作质量和创造力方面仍有改进的空间。这种模式适用于各种科学学科，可以让学生有机会培养向非专业受众传达科学信息的能力——这是提高整个社会科学素养的关键技能。
