NIDA: Festivals - Single Mechanism Working Paper

Network for Information and Digital Access

The impact of Science Literacy delivery methods - what works?

Single mechanism analysis report
Festivals | Group 1. Events, meetings, performances

V 2.0 | 10 October 2018

WORKING PAPER

Team members

Valentina De Col | Lead Researcher, NIDA
Kamran Naim | Executive Director, NIDA
Carol Priestley | Senior Advisor, NIDA
Carol Usher | Manager, Publicity & Dissemination, NIDA

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Co-financed by Evergreen Education Foundation (EEF) and NIDA

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Executive Summary
1. Introduction

1.1 This report presents a synthesis of the proven impact, strengths and weaknesses of festivals
in delivering science literacy.
1.2 This individual analysis is situated within the framework of a broad study of science literacy
aimed to establish what has been proven successful in the field; with the objective to
promote and adapt good practices and fill gaps in knowledge about ‘what works’.
1.3 The full study identified 42 single-mechanism approaches, 2 composite approaches and 1
related approach; ‘Festivals’ are categorized within Group 1 relating to ‘Events, meetings,
performances’.
2. Methodology for resource discovery and analysis
2.1 From October 2017 to May 2018, the research team surveyed existing resources through
retrieval via research databases, subject databases, open access repositories and through
contact with interested organisations, institutions and individuals.
2.2 The resources were divided into impact assessments (IAs) and descriptive resources. For the
purposes of analysis, only those published during the years 2013 -2018 were utilised. Each
resource was read in detail, significant data was extracted and entered into a specifically
developed database. An example of the database mask is included in Appendix A.
2.3 Although the total number of resources located was not designed to be exhaustive or
definitive, the resources captured in this research are limited to those available in the
English language and to translations that had already been made from other languages into
English.
3. Overview of results
3.1 Over 2,100 IA studies and descriptive resources were identified in the full research process,
of which 36 relate specifically to ‘Festivals’ of which 25 were published between 2013-2018.
3.2 The subject coverage spanned from life and biological sciences, through interdisciplinary
approaches to general science. The activity countries included Ireland (2), New Zealand (1),
Turkey (1), United Kingdom (8) and United States of America (2).
3.3 The 12 impact assessment studies all referred to ‘programmatic’ delivery. Their audiences
were reached through educational institutions (20%), research centres (13.3%),
collaborations between interested institutions (40%) and ‘others’, mainly promoting
arts/music over science (26.7%).
3.4 The approaches to conducting assessment within the resources identified were
overwhelmingly mixed-method. The data collection methods included written or online
surveys, interviews, case studies, observations, focus/discussion groups, phone calls.
4. Discussion
4.1 Science festivals were shown to be events that combine science with fun and entertainment,
enabling communication and connection with audiences. However, despite being
increasingly popular, existing studies have not fully addressed outcomes, impacts and
popularity. Moreover, existing research has employed limited methodologies and have
focused on self-reporting of specific, individual events, and not on the complete experience.

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4.2 There are consistently, self-reported, beneficial impacts on awareness, knowledge and
understanding and science festivals also appear to produce a positive effect in terms of
engagement, influence and increased motivation to learn about new ideas or topics in STEM.
4.3 The key strength of festivals as a delivery mechanism for science literacy is that they can
provide the general population with a wide range of activities in a variety of formats, in an
informal and fun environment. They also provide the opportunity for festival goers to
engage directly with scientists.
4.4 Weaknesses included interception of audiences depending on the location of the venue and
on their transient nature being time-limited.
4.5 Many science festivals have high levels of intensive volunteer participation by scientists,
universities, technologists and engineers. Synergy and support between festival organisers
and the different collaborators was found to be essential.
4.6 Improved or new evaluation methodologies are required and future research should also
consider the longer-term impact of science festivals.
5. Conclusions
5.1 Science festivals appear to be a valuable environment for public engagement with science,
particular popular in the UK but also gaining in interest internationally. Evaluation studies
revealed many positive impacts, although these are primarily self-reported by the attendees.
5.2 The analysis of existing resources showed that festivals are able to deliver broad scientific
content to the general population through a variety of formats, interactions and
communication strategies.
5.3 Science festivals hold potential for their cultural and community dimension.
5.4 Successful evaluation requires that methods are adapted to suit the environment and
overcoming substantial weaknesses in the evaluation methods employed in this sector might
provide new insights and reduce the risk of bias.

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CONTENTS

Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................... i
1. Mechanisms, groups and approaches ........................................................................................ 4
2. Methodology for resource discovery and analysis ..................................................................... 5
2.1. Search method ....................................................................................................................... 5
2.2. Data extraction for the analysis ............................................................................................. 6
2.3. Limitations of the resource discovery .................................................................................... 6
3. Overview of results ................................................................................................................... 6
3.1. Total number of resources discovered .................................................................................. 6
3.2. Scientific subjects .................................................................................................................. 7
3.3. Countries involved in the studies ........................................................................................... 7
3.4. Educational delivery models .................................................................................................. 8
3.5. Target sectors ........................................................................................................................ 8
3.6. Delivery institutions ............................................................................................................... 8
3.7. Approach to data collection ................................................................................................... 9
3.8. Sampling technique and sample size ................................................................................... 10
4. Discussion ................................................................................................................................ 10
4.1. Contexts of use .................................................................................................................... 10
4.2. Impacts ................................................................................................................................ 12
4.2.1. Awareness, knowledge or understanding ............................................................................ 12
4.2.2. Engagement or interest ........................................................................................................ 13
4.2.3. Attitude ................................................................................................................................ 13
4.2.4. Behaviour ............................................................................................................................. 14
4.2.5. Skills ...................................................................................................................................... 14
4.2.6. Others ................................................................................................................................... 14
4.3. Strengths .............................................................................................................................. 14
4.4. Weaknesses ......................................................................................................................... 16
4.5. Costs and feasibility ............................................................................................................. 18
4.6. Suggestions for improved methodologies and for future studies ....................................... 18
5. Conclusions and overview ........................................................................................................ 20
APPENDIX A: Example of data input mask ..................................................................................... 22
APPENDIX B: Selected bibliography ............................................................................................... 24

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Mechanisms, groups and approaches 1.
During the first part of the Desk Research phase of this project (i.e. Task 1), the research team
identified 42 single-mechanism approaches, 2 composite approaches and 1 related approach that
were relevant to the delivery and dissemination of scientific information. The list of single
mechanisms was further organised into 7 thematic groups, as presented in Table 1.
The subject of this report is ‘Festivals’, included in Group 1 ‘Events, meetings, performances’.

Single mechanism approach Group

Exhibitions, Expo, Festivals, Movies, Picnics,
Science Fairs, Seminars, Talks, TED Talks, Theatre,
Workshops

1. Events, meetings, performances
Colloquia, Courses, Curricula, E-learning, Webinars

2. Education and training – including online
Animations, Books, Brochures, Cartoons, Comics,
Games, Graphics, Posters, Publications, Radio,
Reports, TV, Videos

3. Traditional publishing and journalism –
print and broadcast
Competitions, Experiments, Makerspaces, Mobile
classrooms, Mobile laboratories

4. Activities and services
Blogs, E-books, E-zines, Mobile Apps, Podcasts, Social
media, Websites, Wikis

5. Online interactions
Composite approaches

Multiliteracies
Multimodalities

Related approach

Citizen Science

Table 1. Organisation of the delivery approaches of science literacy adopted in this research.
For the purposes of this study, the definition of ‘Festivals’ refers more specifically to ‘science
festivals’ being events ‘that showcase science and technology with the same freshness and flair that
would be expected from an art or music festival. Events can be varied, including lectures,
exhibitions, workshops, live demonstrations of experiments, guided tours, and panel discussions.
There may also be events linking science to the arts or history, such as plays, dramatised readings,
and musical productions. The core content is that of science and technology, but the style comes
from the world of the arts’ 1
.
Broadly construed, science festivals encompass a cluster of events, from university open days,
citywide events, national campaigns, and international awareness weeks (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017),

1
“Science festival”, Wikipedia, Accessed September 28, 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_festival

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can be of varying of durations, ranging from one day to an entire month, potentially with an
overarching theme (Rose et al. 2017). The objective of these festivals can be briefly summarised to
‘bring public audiences and scientific concepts together’ (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017).
Methodology for resource discovery and analysis 2.
Search method 2.1.
From October 2017 to May 2018, the research team carried out an extensive process of resource
discovery to survey existing works and impact studies that could provide valuable evidence on the
impact of the identified science delivery approaches and mechanisms.
The search was carried out by retrieving documents and articles from a wide range of sources,
including research databases, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, subject databases and open access
repositories. The use of non-boolean keyword combinations returned a consistent number of
relevant results from prominent academic journals and online library databases (e.g. ERIC, Frontiers,
JCOM, MedLine/PubMed, Nature, NCBI, Wiley Online Library, PLOS, SAGE, ScienceDirect, Springer,
Web of Science). Moreover, the findings were complemented with relevant resources such as theses
and manuscripts retrieved from university repositories, reports and case studies from different
organisations and NGOs. In addition, contact was made with researchers via the ResearchGate
community and single individuals from NIDA’s Facebook page who expressed interest in the research
and directly contributed by providing annotated bibliographies for their fields of expertise.
The resource discovery was performed by combining the mechanism name with 1 of the 5
keywords/synonyms for ‘impact’ and 1 of the 10 literacies and sub-sector literacies identified by the
Team, one combination at a time. The search strategy is exemplified in Table 2.

Approach Terms for impact Literacy and sub-sector literacies
[single mechanism]
e.g. theatre

Impact
Impact assessment
Assessment
Performance measurement
Outcomes
Agricultural Literacy
Chemistry Literacy
Climate Literacy
Computer Literacy
Earth Science Literacy
Food safety Literacy
Health Literacy
Nutrition Literacy
Science Literacy
Statistical Literacy
Table 2. Search strategy using keywords combinations.
This method generated a total number of 50-word combinations (to illustrate one single
example: ‘theatre impact science literacy’) for each of the science delivery mechanisms investigated.
The articles and materials selected for the analysis span between 2013 and 2018 and were
initially sorted into two main groups: one containing impact assessments that provide a qualitative,
quantitative or mixed method (both qualitative and quantitative) research approaches to data
collection; and a second including different typologies of descriptive resources, e.g. reviews, guides,

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handbooks, reports. Resources were organised by mechanism and the principal metadata (e.g. title,
author, date, scientific subject) saved on a Microsoft Excel® spreadsheet prior to database import.
Data extraction for the analysis 2.2.
The identified impact assessments were subsequently uploaded to a Microsoft Access® database,
developed by the Team to collect relevant information from each study. An example of the database
mask for data entry is included in Appendix A. Each article was read in detail, and significant data
were extracted, entered into the database and used as core information to carry out the analysis.
Limitations of the resource discovery 2.3.
The resource discovery was limited to resources available in English language, and studies in other
languages were only included where translations had already been made to English2
. Another
intrinsic limitation lies within the search methodology, particularly on the keyword combinations,
which explains a low number of articles for some of the mechanisms investigated.
Moreover, the total number of resources located is not meant to be exhaustive or definitive. It is
a work in progress that attempts to offer a synthesis of examples spanning across different literacies
and sub-sector literacies, with no geographical limitations, with the aim to contribute to the
understanding of science, its applications, and to the promotion of science literacy.
Overview of results 3.
Total number of resources discovered 3.1.
Over 2,100 impact assessment studies and descriptive resources were identified in the full research
process, of which 25 relate specifically to ‘Festivals’. However, for the purposes of analysis a decision
was taken to concentrate on those published between 2013-2018, as presented in Table 3, to
provide currency of information. All of the articles containing examples of impact assessment are
analysed in the following paragraphs and in Chapter 4, together with all relevant information offered
by the descriptive documents that were used to consolidate and complement the findings.

Resources (2013-2018) Number
Impact assessments 12
Descriptive resources 5
Total no. of resources analysed 17
Table 3. Total number of resources analysed.

2
The research and analysis methodologies will, however, be available from NIDA in English, French and Spanish in order
that others may utilise and/or translate and adapt, replicate and extend the coverage.

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Scientific subjects 3.2.
The main subjects of the impact assessments are synthesized in Table 4. The systematic
categorisation of science branches was retrieved from Wikipedia3
and customized for the purpose of
the research.

Main subject area Detailed subject References
General
Jensen and Buckley 2014;
Quagliata 2015; Sardo and
Grand 2015; Sardo 2016;
Sardo and Grand 2016;
Fogg-Rogers 2017; Keçeci
2017
Interdisciplinary
Cultural studies Venugopal and
Featherstone 2014
Environmental studies Herbolzheimer and
Featherstone 2014
Neuroscience Fogg-Rogers et al. 2015
Life / Biology Genetics Rose et al. 2017
Physical Physics
Roche, Stanley, and Davis
2016
Table 4. Main scientific subjects of the resources analysed.
Countries involved in the studies 3.3.
The countries where the studies have taken place are listed in Table 5 and can be visualized on the
world map in Figure 1.

Countries No. of studies for each country
United Kingdom (UK) 8
Ireland, United States of America (US) 2
New Zealand, Turkey 1
Table 5. Number of impact assessment studies for each country.

3
“Branches of science”, Wikipedia, Accessed January 26, 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branches_of_science

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Figure 1. Geographic distribution of the impact assessment studies analysed [Map generated with
traveltip.org].
Educational delivery models 3.4.
The Team summarised specific models of delivery, whether formal, non-formal or programmatic
(namely, embedded in a programme) and included, for convenience of future discussion, a
distinction towards examples related to health literacy.
In the case of ‘festivals’, all 12 impact assessment studies refer to the ‘programmatic’ category.
Target sectors 3.5.
The target sector(s) addressed by each individual study is presented in Table 6. The categorisation
used was drawn from the ILO (International Labour Organisation) Taxonomy4
list, which was reduced
and simplified. Some articles were attributed to more than one target sectors.
Delivery institutions 3.6.
The delivery institutions promoting ‘festivals’ interventions are presented in Table 7 and they were
identified by the Team within a wide categorisation.

4
“ILO Taxonomy”, Accessed January 26, 2018,
http://www.ilo.org/dyn/taxonomy/taxmain.showSet?p_lang=en&p_set=1

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Main target sector Sub-divided target sector References
Education & Training
(4) 26.7%
Primary education Quagliata 2015; Sardo 2016
Secondary education Quagliata 2015; Keçeci 2017
Population
(11) 73.3%
General
Herbolzheimer and Featherstone 2014;
Jensen and Buckley 2014; Fogg-Rogers et
al. 2015; Sardo and Grand 2015; Sardo
2016; Sardo and Grand 2016; Fogg-Rogers
2017; Rose et al. 2017
Adults
Venugopal and Featherstone 2014; Roche,
Stanley, and Davis 2016; Sardo 2016
Table 6. Target sectors and relative percentage over the total number of instances.

Delivery institution References
Educational institution
(3) 20.0%
Institute of Technology Quagliata 2015
University Jensen and Buckley 2014; Sardo 2016
Research centre
(2) 13.3%
Sardo and Grand 2016; Fogg-Rogers et al.
2015
Various
(7) 40.0%

Herbolzheimer and Featherstone 2014;
Jensen and Buckley 2014; Roche, Stanley,
and Davis 2016; Sardo 2016; Fogg-Rogers
2017; Keçeci 2017; Rose et al. 2017
Others
(3) 26.7%

Venugopal and Featherstone 2014; Sardo
and Grand 2015; Sardo 2016
Table 7. Delivery institutions and relative percentage over the total number of instances.
The category ‘Various’ comprises collaborations between different institutions (e.g. universities,
science museums and centres, local government such city council, government-funded agencies,
independent charities, research councils, consortium, research institutes), whereas ‘Others’ includes
organisations more oriented towards the promotion of art and music over science.
Approach to data collection 3.7.
Of the 12 impact assessment studies, 1 was primarily quantitative, 7 used a mixed-method approach
and 4 were primarily qualitative.
For these studies, data collection approaches involved written or online surveys (8 studies),
interviews (7), case studies (5), observations (5), focus/discussion groups (3), phone call (3),
experiment (1) and pool (1).
Among the data collection tools or scales employed there were questionnaires (3 studies), Likert
scales (3), written or graphic responses (1).

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The statistical approaches used involved mainly hypothesis testing such as t-tests (2 studies) and
ANOVA (1). A few studies specified the software tool or app used for analysis: Microsoft Excel (2),
SPSS 20 (1) and Atlas.it (1).
A common approach of a few studies (Jensen and Buckley 2014; Sardo and Grand 2016; Fogg-
Rogers 2017; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017) was the employment of different methods to help with the
triangulation of data (see paragraph 4.6). As an example, qualitative responses on audience
motivations were triangulated with quantitative data on audience characteristics to further explore
preferences for festival formats (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017).
Sampling technique and sample size 3.8.
Amongst the sampling techniques employed in the studies, were: convenience sampling (7 studies),
random sampling (5), systematic sampling (2) and cluster sampling (1). Sample sizes ranged from 20
to 1179 (382 mean; 256 median) and 4 studies have a sample size under 100 participants.
Discussion 4.
Contexts of use 4.1.
‘Festivals’ are events designed to appeal to a variety of audiences by combining science with fun and
entertainment (Rose et al. 2017). They aim to enable communication and connection with
audiences, foster positive attitudes toward science, educate participants and build relationships
between science institutions and the community (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017; Rose et al. 2017). Science
festivals appear to be increasingly popular, ranging from local one-off celebrations of science to
week-long national activities (Herbolzheimer and Featherstone 2014). Recent studies (Jensen and
Buckley 2014; Fogg-Rogers 2017; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017; Grand and Sardo 2017) confirmed that,
over recent years, science festivals have grown internationally in numbers, size, diversity and
popularity as a means for the public to access topical scientific and health issues and interact with
researchers. This event format is reported to be particularly employed in the UK-with 34 science
festivals identified alone in 2014 - (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017) as a key way to start engagement with
the public (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017), with a similar pattern emerging in the US (Wiehe 2014). An
example of a popular UK format, the ‘Pint of Science’, exported for the first time to Asia was
described by Robinson and colleagues (2017). At the European level, Eusea , the European Science
Events Association, is an international knowledge-sharing platform in the field of public engagement
through which it is possible to follow changes and evolution of science events on a larger scale (Riise
and Alfonsi 2014).
Despite being increasingly popular, existing research on science festivals does not seem to have
fully addressed outcomes, impacts and popularity, according to several authors (Jensen and Buckley
2014; Riise and Alfonsi 2014). Moreover, studies have implied very limited methodologies and have
focused on specific, individual events, and not on the full experience of attending science festivals as
a whole (Jensen and Buckley 2014). One reason that could be identified is the fact that the
evaluation and evidence-based development of science festivals appears to be difficult since they
need to be feasible and appropriate for time-pressured practitioners and might be challenging to
prioritise in the fast-paced and competitive field of event production (Fogg-Rogers 2017). In

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addition, numerous other drivers can take precedence, including securing event funding, organising
staff and volunteers, and the precarious short-term nature of science communication contracts or
volunteering roles (Fogg-Rogers 2017). Moreover, small, one-off events may not have the means to
carry out a major evaluation, and those that do, mainly focus on issues of process and organisation
based on immediate, quick responses from the public (Herbolzheimer and Featherstone 2014).
As described by Jensen and Buckley (2014), most prior studies of visitor responses at science
festivals have been practically-oriented evaluations of outputs and attendance, carried out by
festival organisers or, less frequently, by commissioned external evaluators. Very few studies,
according to the same authors, have focused on visitors’ views and reached the quality threshold to
be published in a peer-reviewed journal (Jensen and Buckley 2014).
The engagement formats within scientific themed festivals are varied, ranging from more
traditional (e.g. lectures, discussions, debates, local museum activities and exhibitions) to more
interactive and informal formats (e.g. hands-on activities, laboratory workshops, shows and
demonstrations, interactive displays, community expo, music and art performances, theatre, films )
(Jensen and Buckley 2014; Sardo 2016; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017; Rose et al. 2017) and this
combination of communication methods appears necessary to engage multigenerational audiences
(Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017).
The British scenario offers a variety of cases of festivals developed in the recent years. The
Nottingham Festival of Science and Curiosity, the Northern Ireland Science Festival and Bath Taps
into Science are three examples of STEM-themed (Fogg-Rogers 2017). There are also the British
Science Festivals (Roche, Stanley, and Davis 2016); the Bristol Bright Night 2015 (BBN) as part of the
European Researchers’ Night (Sardo 2016); the UK Cambridge Science Festival, a large regional
university-led festival (Jensen and Buckley 2014); and the Bristol Festival of Nature (BFON), the UK's
biggest celebration of the natural world (Herbolzheimer and Featherstone 2014).
Each of these examples explored different aspects: from the feasibility of ongoing evaluations for
three science festivals (Fogg-Rogers 2017), to the measurement of adults’ engagement during an
interactive physics shows (Roche, Stanley, and Davis 2016), the assessment of audiences’
engagement and investigation of researchers’ motivations, challenges and perceived value of such
events (Sardo 2016), but also interests, motivations and self-reported benefits of visitors interacting
with scientific researchers (Jensen and Buckley 2014) or the effectiveness of the festival in engaging
a wide range of attendees with a particular science-related topic, namely nature conservation
(Herbolzheimer and Featherstone 2014).
Still in the UK’s ‘vibrant’ science festival landscape, other studies evaluated the impact of science
activities presented in a summer cultural festival, the Latitude Festival in Suffolk (UK) (Sardo and
Grand 2015; 2016) and the experience of visitors to a science area of an arts festival, the Green Man
festival (Venugopal and Featherstone 2014). The few other examples outside of the UK (Quagliata
2015; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017; Keçeci 2017; Rose et al. 2017) brought into discussion neuroscience
aspects within the New Zealand population (the Brain Day Auckland; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017); or the
impact on audiences’ perceptions of controversial science topics, namely human gene editing, in the
US population (the Wisconsin Science Festival; Rose et al. 2017). Among these international
examples, two science festivals were targeted to primary and secondary education (Quagliata 2015;
Keçeci 2017), in one case to promote STEM-related career interests during a university festival in the
US (Quagliata 2015) and, in the second case, to determine aims and learning attainments of Turkish
students participating in a science festival (Keçeci 2017).

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Impacts 4.2.
The impacts identified in the studies were organised using impact categories proposed by the
evaluation framework of the National Science Foundation5
.
However, it is important to underline that, for this mechanism, it was found that the impact
assessments mainly rely on self-reported measures (e.g. of interest, motivation, knowledge) and/or
perceived benefits of the attendees. Moreover, due to the general voluntary participation to the
science festival events, the attitude towards science was found to be positive (e.g. Sardo 2016),
representing a bias difficult to exclude from the overall evaluation. These aspects are more
extensively discussed in paragraph 4.4, which report the most significant weak points identified by
different authors (e.g. Jensen and Buckley 2014; Fogg-Rogers 2017; Rose et al. 2017).
4.2.1. Awareness, knowledge or understanding
As stated in the introduction (4.2), different authors (Jensen and Buckley 2014; Sardo and Grand
2015; Sardo 2016; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017; Keçeci 2017; Rose et al. 2017) have described self-
reported beneficial impacts on awareness, knowledge and understanding. In more detail, Jensen and
Buckley (2014) found clear evidence of self-reported benefits of attendance in a UK science festival
in the domain of improved knowledge and understanding for a majority of web-based survey
respondents. They also affirmed that ‘while knowledge acquisition is an important benefit of science
festival attendance for some, the opportunity to encounter science in an ‘exciting’ or ‘inspiring’
context is a much more commonly perceived benefit of attendance’ (Jensen and Buckley 2014).
Positive effects on knowledge acquisition were observed throughout a health science festival in New
Zealand, perceived by the audience as empowering in increasing their health literacy, especially
since it gave them control over their own and their family’s health care (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017).
Nevertheless, this latter study did not investigate whether the audiences actually gained new
understanding, or whether subsequent dialogue and discussion helped them to consolidate this
knowledge. However, the authors stressed that ‘the notion that knowledge is empowering in itself is
central to the concept of scientific and health literacy as an asset: by being able to inform and
influence individual and community self-efficacy and behaviour’ (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017). During
the Bristol Bright Night 2015 science festival (Sardo 2016), more than the 80% of the children
reported that they learnt something from the activities they attended and this was also supported
by teachers’ feedback. With the same positive result, almost the 70% of participants to report on
human gene-editing indicated an increased understanding of the complexities of this topic,
demonstrated by a gain in knowledge but also moral acceptability of technology (Rose et al. 2017).
Audiences increased their perceptions of both risks and benefits of the technology, probably as a
result of an acquired familiarity or comfort with the topic (Rose et al. 2017). Students’ learning
attainments in achieving new knowledge, expanding their perspectives of science, learning about
the uses of technology and using the information in daily life were revealed by the study of Keçeci
(2017) as a result of primary and secondary pupils participating to a science festival in Turkey.
Moreover, students created awareness within the society with the information they received during

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Friedman, AJ, Allen, S, Campbell, PB, Dierking, LD, Flagg, BN, Garibay, C, Korn, R, Silverstein, G and Ucko, DA. “Framework
for evaluating impacts of informal science education projects. Report from a National Science Foundation Workshop”
(2008): 114. http://www.informalscience.org/sites/default/files/Eval_Framework.pdf

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the science festivals and they encouraged people to know scientific activities by conveying this
information to the people in their environment in a clear and understandable way (Keçeci 2017).
Finally, the evaluation of a science event within a music festival (Sardo and Grand 2015) revealed
that participants learned something new because it had strong links to their real life and they
welcomed the educational and learning value of the event.
4.2.2. Engagement or interest
Science festivals also appear to produce a positive effect in terms of engagement and interest, as
presented by different studies (Jensen and Buckley 2014; Quagliata 2015; Sardo and Grand 2015,
2016; Fogg-Rogers 2017; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017).
From the pilot evaluation of three events in the UK (Fogg-Rogers 2017), many respondents
indicated a positive influence and an increased motivation to learn about new ideas or topics in
STEM, although recognised having a prior connection to STEM in some form. Similarly, the evaluator
of another British science festival (Sardo 2016) observed high levels of in-depth engagement, as well
as reported by the majority of visitors; the researchers involved in the event were also positive
about their experience, keen to participate in similar events and particularly impressed with the
level of engagement and interest of the visitors (Sardo 2016).
Other significant self-reported impacts of attending a science festival were the development of
increased interest and curiosity (Jensen and Buckley 2014; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017). The on-site
survey of the UK Cambridge Science Festival showed, in fact, that the self-reported impact of
‘creating interest’ was the most frequently reported by survey respondents, also connected to the
‘psychological immediacy of the live, highly social, science engagement experience, which
distinguishes science festivals from many other science engagement contexts’ (Jensen and Buckley
2014). Likewise, participants of another health-themed festival in New Zealand indicated a general
interest and motivation for learning, together with a sense of enjoyment in the learning process, also
as a result of the interesting topic of neuroscience (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017).
In the two studies (Sardo and Grand 2015, 2016) about the Latitude Festival, a UK music festival,
the authors observed a strong emotional response to the events, which was welcomed as an
opportunity for personal reflection on their health and well-being (Sardo and Grand 2015) and high
levels of enjoyment and engagement with scientists and other speakers (Sardo and Grand 2016).
Regarding the effects of a science university festival on young people, Quagliata (2015) reported
that participants’ interests in STEM-related careers significantly increased from pre-event to post-
event.
4.2.3. Attitude
Changes in attitude to science were also observed: Sardo (2016) described that audiences of Bristol
Bright Night self-reported a positive change, while on the topic of nature conservation,
Herbolzheimer and Featherstone (2014) commented that visitors of the festival felt positive,
encouraged and inspired. Likewise, a positive attitude toward knowledge and nature was
documented in secondary school and high school students participating in science festivals in Turkey
(Keçeci 2017) whereas, in the US, findings suggested that the university festival, in addition to

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stimulating interest in STEM-related topics, empowered youth to see themselves as innovators and
creators (Quagliata 2015).
4.2.4. Behaviour
In the pilot evaluation reported by Fogg-Rogers (2017), many respondents of the three UK science
festivals indicated that they would take positive action to continue the experience of attending
science festivals and/or convince others to do the same. As a result of the experience of
Herbolzheimer and Featherstone (2014) aimed to engage the public in nature conservation, the
authors indicated a possible deeper long-term behavioural change because many visitors claimed to
be already adopting pro-environmental behaviours before their festival visit.
4.2.5. Skills
In his experience with Reader’s Theatre, Guzielek (2013) observed an increasing overall reading
fluency among primary school students that participated in the designed intervention.
4.2.6. Others
Varied other impacts were observed in numerous studies (Quagliata 2015; Sardo and Grand 2015,
2016; Fogg-Rogers 2017; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017). The science festival experience produced a sense
of entertainment in the attendants to three UK festivals (Fogg-Rogers 2017), enjoyment in learning
about neuroscience in New Zealand (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017) and in participating in science activities
offered in a music festival in the UK (Sardo and Grand 2015). Emotional values of pleasure, novelty,
and desire for knowledge were also offered when attending science-based events at a British
summer cultural festival (Sardo and Grand 2016) and a sense of fun in young people joining a STEM-
themed festival in the US (Quagliata 2015). Participants’ gained confidence when discussing and
interacting with health professionals or scientists as a result of the information they acquired during
the event of the ‘Brain Day Auckland’ in New Zealand, where the event was also relevant to the
participants’ career path or job (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017).
Strengths 4.3.
Science festivals are events that can provide the public with information and conceptual tools to
understand scientific developments in a diversity of subject areas and public engagement formats,
with characteristics of immediacy and interactivity (Jensen and Buckley 2014). Moreover, they
provide opportunities for social interaction, learning and accessing scientific research as a unique
combination not offered by other science engagement settings (Jensen and Buckley 2014). In fact,
science festivals are frequently described as having ‘unique’ features (e.g. Jensen and Buckley 2014;
Wiehe 2014; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017; Rose et al. 2017) both in the way that each festival is different
from year to year and also different from other festivals (Wiehe 2014). Festivals also provide a
particular context that brings together diverse cultural appeal, excitement or ‘buzz’ (including open
days, performances, talks and activities) with the unusual opportunity for the public to interact with
active scientific researchers and experience a wide range of different science engagement activities,

15

alongside more conventional methods of science communication (e.g. the ones in science museums,
science centres and scientists’ presentations in schools) (Jensen and Buckley 2014). As an example,
in the intervention described by Fogg-Rogers and colleagues (2017) about a science festival in New
Zealand focused on neuroscience topics, ‘lectures’ were the format for three consecutive years that,
irrespective of age–group or gender, were significantly ranked as the main attraction, most highly
attended and most useful format, because they provided practical advice and information on health
disorders that built on experiential knowledge. In the same event, it was also observed that
discussions and science laboratory experiments were the formats most purposefully not attended by
older age-groups, but by participants aged 0 to 18 years and 35 to 49 years (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017).
Of course, it is important to frame this reference in the context of this specific festival and that
audience preferences encountered in this study may not be valid for other topics (Fogg-Rogers et al.
2017). In two other examples (Jensen and Buckley 2014; Sardo 2016), for instance, the availability of
family-friendly activities such as ‘hands-on’ activities was positively valued by the visitors of a
summer music festival (Jensen and Buckley 2014) while, conversely, feedback from the Bristol Bright
Night 2015 showed that although some visitors would have welcomed more interactive activities,
traditional engagement formats such as lectures and talks remained popular with some audiences
(Sardo 2016).
From a researcher viewpoint, science festivals can also offer an interesting and relevant
environment to elucidate audience preferences for engagement, as they feature a breadth of
formats offering a range of engagement and learning styles (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017).
It is important to further stress the unique features of science festivals, i.e. their potential of
interaction in distinctive ways than other public engagement events (Rose et al. 2017) do not give,
for example, providing opportunities for the public to engage on a volunteer basis and critically
discuss scientific developments with scientists, science educators and communicators and other
citizens (Jensen and Buckley 2014; Rose et al. 2017). In fact, festivals have been shown to be
increasingly employed by scientists to disseminate research findings and encourage public dialogue
(Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017) and the opportunity to be face-to-face with members of the public seems
to be valued by both the audience and the researchers involved (Sardo 2016). As observed by Fogg-
Rogers and colleagues (2017) in their evaluation of a science festival in the field of neuroscience, the
presence of researchers met the desire of participants to hear first-hand information and opinions
from experts in the field, learn directly from the people undertaking research and discover the latest
cutting-edge developments in the field within a socially stimulating and enjoyable setting. The article
by Wiehe (2014) also reported that STEM practitioners involved in science festivals increased their
confidence in interacting with public audiences and encouraged them to participate in other
informal science education projects throughout the rest of the year.
In the case of a science festival in the US aimed to promote STEM-related careers in young
people, the event created opportunities for the participants to have personal face-to-face
conversations with college students whom they regarded as positive role models and helped them
make the connection between subjects taught in school and other familiar surroundings, as well as
offer new career paths (Quagliata 2015).
Taking these elements together, science festivals appear to offer an exceptional environment for
science communication, providing multiple levels of engagement where audiences can choose how
much and when they interact with science and scientists (Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017). Unlike other
events, science festivals also expose individuals to numerous scientific topics in just one visit,
providing many opportunities for broad public engagement concerning multiple scientific topics

16

(Rose et al. 2017). As observed by Jensen and Buckley (2014), the results from their focus in a British
summer festival highlighted the special role of the event, which was perceived as creating stronger,
more memorable impressions by virtue of its status as a time-limited ‘live event’. Along with the
time-limited nature, the location of science festivals can also play an important role. In the case of
outdoor summer festivals, for example in the case of a ‘festival-in-a-field’ (held in a wholly, but
temporarily, dedicated venue, e.g. a farm), participants are physically isolated, camping on-site, with
access and egress tightly controlled. This isolation can accentuate the sense of leisure, differently
from the style of ‘urban festivals’ (multiple permanent and temporary venues, e.g. in a town or city
center) where participants remain in the normal urban social environment, attending events and
going home afterwards (Sardo and Grand 2016). However, especially in the latter case, when events
are held in mainstream cultural venues or generic venues (e.g. bar, library), they can provide an
opportunity to reach audiences, who may not automatically identify as being interested in science,
and connect with individuals, who may not have initially sought out a science-based topic (Fogg-
Rogers 2017).
Last but not least, science festivals situate science in society as a valuable cultural interest and
part of community life (Fogg-Rogers 2017), where science is not separated from mainstream culture
(Sardo and Grand 2016), generating a strong sense of community and a celebratory feeling
(Herbolzheimer and Featherstone 2014). Moreover, they provide an outlet for people interested in
or connected to STEM to celebrate science with others, as an aspect of their identity, reinforcing
people’s interest as a valuable contribution to society and connecting them into the wider
community (Fogg-Rogers 2017).
Weaknesses 4.4.
Some drawbacks of science festivals are associated with the fact that science festivals can intercept
audiences depending on the location of the venue (e.g. bar, library, farm) and on timing (i.e. time of
the year) and weather conditions (Sardo and Grand 2015; Fogg-Rogers 2017) and duration of the
event. Particularly regarding this last aspect, festival celebrations are inevitably ephemeral: they may
refresh content, change partners and venues, and reinvent their structures from year to year (Wiehe
2014). Moreover, the time-limited experience might not be sufficient for people to see everything
presented in the festival; however, transience is one of festivals’ defining characteristics and, if
events are held more frequently, it would be difficult task to induce and sustain the same sense of
occasion and excitement (Sardo 2016).
On the organisational aspects, the need for encouragement, support and training of the
researchers for their participation in science festival activities was emphasized in the literature
(Sardo 2016; Fogg-Rogers 2017), as well as other practical features like signage, description of the
activities, capacity (e.g. rooms) and arrangement (e.g. stage, screen chairs) (Sardo and Grand 2015).
Finally, the evaluation of science festivals can be time-consuming, can distract the participants from
the festival experience (Fogg-Rogers 2017) and ‘choosing appropriate methods that will enable an
evaluation to meet its objectives is not always straightforward, given the subtle interplay of
objectives, communication medium, and audiences’ (Grand and Sardo 2017). However, as
introduced previously (paragraph 4.2), there are substantial underlying weaknesses in the
methodologies and evaluations of science festivals that need to be considered. As summarised in the
work of Rose and colleagues (2017): theoretically and methodologically sound research and

17

evaluative efforts on the reach, outcomes and impact of public engagement practices lag behind,
despite the increasing prevalence of public engagement events for science-related issues; specific
goals of these events are often unclear, and the impact of such events on participants’ knowledge
and attitudes has not yet clearly been established; the potential impacts of a specific engagement
activity are highly dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the audience (potential and
actual) and the stated goals of the event. In fact, the variegated context of science festivals raises a
number of methodological challenges such as: collecting data from a transitory visitor population in
a crowded informal context; designing survey questions that can accommodate feedback on a broad
range of public engagement activities; and analysing the diversity of feedback on these multi-faceted
experiences (e.g. not all respondents may have been exposed to the same experience) in a way that
allows common patterns to emerge (Jensen and Buckley 2014).
Many authors (Jensen and Buckley 2014; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017; Rose et al. 2017) observed the
following aspects: there is the possibility of bias within the results of a study when participants may
have already been interested in or knowledgeable about the topic addressed in the event or when
efforts are based on participant self-reports after the event or inferred based on event-generated
reports or recommendations (Rose et al. 2017) since participants who completed the survey may be
the most opinionated or literate and may not be a true reflection of the entire population (Fogg-
Rogers et al. 2017). Additionally, there is a limiting validity and over-reliance of visitors’ responses to
science festivals using only closed-ended response as these do not allow for a detailed
understanding of processes of visitor reception of science festival events (Jensen and Buckley 2014);
visitors may have adapted their answers in an attempt to please the interviewer (Herbolzheimer and
Featherstone 2014); and survey methods that allow individuals to self-select into a study, such as
feedback forms or comment boxes, may oversample those who felt they experienced an extreme
effect from engagement activities (Rose et al. 2017). Related to this last aspect, at multi-venue
events people can be over-sampled, as evaluators in one location cannot easily know to whom
evaluators at another have spoken. This can be mitigated by, for example, giving interviewees a
small sticker to attach to their clothing; a simple signal that they have been interviewed (Grand and
Sardo 2017).
Moreover, to better understand science festivals and their potential outcomes, it would be
important to understand who attends these events: a homogeneous public does not exist; rather,
what comprises ‘the public’ is a complex web of groups with differing backgrounds, cultural
experiences, political ideologies, religious beliefs, and types and levels of knowledge (Rose et al.
2017). ‘Each group and individual hold different beliefs about the role of science in their lives and
requires different methods of learning, understanding, and engaging with science. As such, public
engagement activity organizers must approach each group differently to achieve a specific goal.
Without appropriate knowledge of the attending audiences, organizers are in ‘danger of aiming at
everybody and reaching nobody’’ (Rose et al. 2017).
Another element that should be taken into account when evaluating the role of science festivals
is their potential to reinforce an unrealistic vision of science, meaning, for example, that the
motivations of the volunteer scientists participating in the festival tend to be on the side of
persuading people that science is an enjoyable and worthwhile activity and, the ways in which this
message is conveyed and the enjoyment-centric context of the event, may frame science
inaccurately (Jensen and Buckley 2014). The same authors (Jensen and Buckley 2014) further state
that ‘scientific practice is by and large a matter of painstaking labour, and this aspect of science is
heavily downplayed in the science festival context in order to maintain the focus on enjoyment that

18

most institutions, including television and museums, see as essential for gaining and maintaining a
broad public audience’.
Compared to other types of public engagement with science events, science festivals appear as a
new field and limited peer-reviewed research has addressed or evaluated public engagement efforts
occurring at these events (Rose et al. 2017). Evaluation mechanisms are essential for data-driven
decision-making about the future of science festivals and their role in public engagement with
science (Rose et al. 2017); little is known even about why the public visit such festivals and what they
believe they gain from them (Jensen and Buckley, 2014). Support and tools appear to be needed to
improve both event organisers practice and the science festival experience for audiences (Fogg-
Rogers 2017).
Costs and feasibility 4.5.
As previously noted, science festivals normally offer a wide range of potential experiences within a
time-limited context. One consequence of this temporality is that investments may be made
activities that would be hard to sustain for longer periods (Jensen and Buckley, 2014). Many science
festivals have high levels of intensive volunteer participation by scientists, university students,
technologists and engineers and the number and scope of the involvement of this volunteer
scientific expertise plays a key role in positive visitor impacts (Jensen and Buckley, 2014). Many
science events face increasing funding challenges for several reasons, from general cuts in corporate
sponsorship to the lack of solid evidence of conclusive impact from the events (Riise and Alfonsi
2014).
From the participant perspective, attending a festival can be expensive (Sardo and Grand 2016).
In a ‘festival-in-a-field’ typology, a dull or unenjoyable event can be seen as merely a waste of time,
while in an urban festival, it can be seen as a waste of both time and money, with inevitable effects
on participants’ attitudes to the events (Sardo and Grand 2016). Wiehe (2014); others stressed the
importance of a synergy and support between festival organisers and the different collaborators
(e.g. founding institutions, universities).
Suggestions for improved methodologies and for future studies 4.6.
The observations formulated in paragraph 4.4 already offer some considerations for improved or
new methodologies. Particularly, three project reports (Sardo and Grand 2016; Sardo 2016; Fogg-
Rogers 2017) provide guides to evaluation (toolkit) or practical suggestions (Sardo and Grand 2015)
to help practitioners wishing to assess the impact of their public science engagement activities. In
this context, the recent article by Grand and Sardo (2017) is particularly useful in drawing on their
experience of evaluating informal events in the field.
In selecting evaluation methods, Fogg-Rogers (2017) suggested that care must be taken to assess
the reliability and validity of the tests used, but also the feasibility of sampling and data analysis.
Some methods of evaluation may be in fact more rigorous and it may not be possible to apply them
within the time and funding constraints of many festival environments. Moreover, evaluation and
reflective practice methods need to be quick and easy to conduct, adapted for each audience and
situation, and practitioners will need to take both rigour and feasibility of methods into account
(Fogg-Rogers 2017). Moreover, the informality of the events and venues in festivals should be

19

reflected in the use of unobtrusive and minimally disruptive evaluation methods (Grand and Sardo
2017).
A common feature of the studies analysed, across different festivals and event styles, is the
combined use of different methods to help with the triangulation of data (e.g. Jensen and Buckley,
2014; Sardo and Grand 2016; Fogg-Rogers 2017; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017). Methodological
triangulation, in fact, compensates for the strengths and weaknesses inherent in any one data
collection method by using overlapping methods on the same topic (Jensen and Buckley, 2014) to
capture the audience’ and presenters’ perspectives (Sardo and Grand 2016). These methods include,
for example: snapshot interviews; focus groups; questionnaires with audience members (e.g. on-
site, available for self-completion in the festival venue or online, incorporated into the event booking
form, or by using snapshot interviews at events to gather email data for follow-up online
questionnaires; Fogg-Rogers 2017); comment cards; phone interviews (Sardo and Grand 2016);
observations for practitioners at events (e.g. to verify the sampling undertaken with the snapshot
interviews and, as observation feedback, to verify if the interview sample was a representative
cross-section of the audience); reflective practice form (e.g. about festival aims, audiences and
events) for event organisers and semi-structured interviews conducted with organisers (Fogg-Rogers
2017) or autonomous methods like graffiti walls (to include a wider range of participants, including
children, as it offers the option of drawing if writing skills are limited; Herbolzheimer and
Featherstone 2014; Grand and Sardo 2017) and feedback cards (designed cards with
questions/prompts on one side and the other side left blank for responses; Grand and Sardo 2017)
that will help to ensure the atmosphere of the event is unaffected and the disruption to participants’
enjoyment is minimized (Grand and Sardo 2017).
Among all the methods presented, snapshot interviews were found to be the most effective
method to sample audiences at events (e.g. Herbolzheimer and Featherstone 2014; Sardo and Grand
2015, 2016; Fogg-Rogers 2017) and capture lively and immediate feedback (Grand and Sardo 2017),
since it is very difficult to get audiences to sit down and find quiet spaces to conduct either a focus
group or a questionnaire. Snapshot interviews are also easy to conduct, quick to complete, and
relatively fast to transcribe and analyse (Fogg-Rogers 2017). They last between ninety seconds and
two minutes, using a small number of consistent, clear and structured questions that allow rapid
answers, to capture short and immediate feedback from participants in busy locations (Sardo and
Grand 2015). Snapshot interviews fit the informal and relaxed atmosphere of festivals where people
welcome the opportunity for conversations with new people, can be used with a variety of settings
and audiences and combined with observations (Grand and Sardo 2017).
In reference to what was reported by Rose and colleagues (2017) (paragraph 4.4) with regard to
knowing the attending audience in their experience of the Wisconsin Science Festival, their study
adopted two surveys based on a randomization procedure to enabled the surveyors to obtain a
more accurate and representative sample of the festival audience: one for the festival attendees
(using a random intercept design) and a second for the Wisconsin residents (a state-representative
mailed survey, addressed to randomly selected residents) as baseline data. The techniques and
methodologies to gather data in this study were suggested to hold the potential to be adapted and
employed during other events, with the study variables providing a starting point for other
researchers to build assessments of their own science event activities (Rose et al. 2017); ‘only by
securing baseline data and checking if current goals are being met, can future work be improved to
reach new audiences beyond those most commonly self-selected to attend science festivals’ (Rose
et al. 2017). On this aspect, pre-visit and post-visit data on the same visitors might also allow

20

comparison and direct measures of impact instead of on-site survey data collected from visitors at
only one point in time (Jensen and Buckley 2014).
In addition, Rose and colleagues (2017) suggested that additional research has found that the
most ‘successful’ science festival events, in terms of reaching and impacting audiences beyond those
inherently interested in science or the particular topic of interest, is to target a subpopulation or one
‘public’ instead of a wide range of ‘publics’ that may not be inherently interested in science (Rose et
al. 2017), whereas other authors (Sardo and Grand 2016) proposed that, to engage with a wider and
more diverse audience, new approaches and different types of venues must be explored, such as
‘generic venues’ or ‘unusual places’, e.g. cafés, parks, squares, streets, shopping centers, where
members of the public naturally congregate for leisure (Riise and Alfonsi 2014; Sardo and Grand
2016).
To conclude, future research should also consider the longer-term impact of science festivals,
which hold the key to understanding informal science engagement’s role in people’s lives and can
help assess the relative contribution of informal science engagement to the development of a
healthy relationship between science and society (Jensen and Buckley, 2014).
Conclusions and overview 5.
Science festivals appear to be a valuable environment for public engagement with science (e.g.
Venugopal and Featherstone 2014) which is gaining in interest and international popularity,
particularly in the UK (Table 5).
This event format differs from activities provided, for example, by science museums and centres
because of its temporary nature, the focus on current scientific research and the interactive
dimension with researchers. Rather than being targeted on specific topics, science festivals appear
to be mainly employed to deliver broad scientific contents (Table 4) to the general population (Table
6) and to be embedded in programmatic events, usually developed from the synergy of different
types of organisations (Table 7).
Science festivals can provide a wide range of activities in different formats, from more traditional
(e.g. lectures, discussions) to interactive ones (e.g. hands-on activities, shows) (Jensen and Buckley
2014; Sardo and Grand 2015; Rose et al. 2017). They are therefore unique in different ways since
they enable varying levels of engagement and learning styles to take place at the same time,
meeting audience requirements through a variety of formats, interactions and communications
(Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017). Therefore, they can provide participants with multifaceted non-formal and
informal science education contexts, and also offer leisure experiences, enabling learning for fun
(Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017). An interesting opportunity provided by festivals is the possibility for
members of the public to directly interact and engage with scientists, researchers or community
experts (e.g. Jensen and Buckley 2014; Sardo 2016; Fogg-Rogers et al. 2017; Rose et al. 2017) on
contemporary scientific research (Jensen and Buckley 2014). Researchers’ presence and proactivity
are key elements for a successful event (Wiehe 2014; Sardo 2016).
Science festivals also hold potential for their cultural and community dimension: they are venues
for the cultural celebration of science (Venugopal and Featherstone 2014; Sardo and Grand 2016)
and they provide the platform for sharing knowledge, interests and experiences as a community.
Although the time-limited feature of these events can be considered a disadvantage, it is also a
factor that makes them a special and unique experience (Jensen and Buckley 2014). As Grand and

21

Sardo (2017) observed, ‘public engagement with science increasingly happens in informal spaces, as
part of wider cultural activity, free-form, and flowing’. Successful evaluation requires that methods
be adapted to suit the environment (Grand and Sardo 2017) and this seems one of the major, if not
the major challenge.

22

APPENDIX A: Example of data input mask

23

Extracted from:
Nicklas, Theresa, Sandra Lopez, Yan Liu, Rabab Saab, and Robert Reiher. “Motivational Theater to
Increase Consumption of Vegetable Dishes by Preschool Children.” International Journal of
Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 14 (February 7, 2017): 16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-
017-0468-0.

24

APPENDIX B: Selected bibliography

Impact assessment

Fogg-Rogers, L., and UK Science Festival Network. “UK Science Festival Network Pilot Evaluation
2017.” Project Report. Bristol, Uk: Science Communication Unit, 2017.
http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/33602.
Fogg-Rogers, Laura, Jacquie L. Bay, Hannah Burgess, and Suzanne C. Purdy. “‘Knowledge Is Power’: A
Mixed-Methods Study Exploring Adult Audience Preferences for Engagement and Learning
Formats Over 3 Years of a Health Science Festival.” Science Communication 37, no. 4 (2015):
419–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547015585006.
Herbolzheimer, Maya, and Helen Featherstone. “Popularising Nature: An Evaluation of the
Effectiveness of the 2009 Bristol Festival of Nature in Engaging with a Wide Range of Attendees
in Nature Conservation.” UWE Science Communication Postgraduate Papers 2 (2014): 63–74.
Jensen, Eric, and Nicola Buckley. “Why People Attend Science Festivals: Interests, Motivations and
Self-Reported Benefits of Public Engagement with Research.” Public Understanding of Science
23, no. 5 (2014): 557–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662512458624.
Keçecı̇, Gonca. “The Aims and Learning Attainments of Secondary and High School Students
Attending Science Festivals: A Case Study.” Educational Research and Reviews 12, no. 23
(December 10, 2017): 1146–53. https://doi.org/10.5897/ ERR2017.3378.
Quagliata, Andrew. “University Festival Promotes STEM Education.” Journal of STEM Education 16,
no. 3 (September 15, 2015). https://www.learntechlib.org/p/151967/.
Roche, Joseph, Jessica Stanley, and Nicola Davis. “Engagement with Physics across Diverse Festival
Audiences.” Physics Education 51, no. 4 (2016): 045007. https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-
9120/51/4/045007.
Rose, Kathleen M., Kaine Korzekwa, Dominique Brossard, Dietram A. Scheufele, and Laura Heisler.
“Engaging the Public at a Science Festival: Findings From a Panel on Human Gene Editing.”
Science Communication 39, no. 2 (2017): 250–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547017697981.
Sardo, Ana Margarida, and Ann Grand. “Science in Culture: Audiences’ Perspective on Engaging With
Science at a Summer Festival.” Science Communication 38, no. 2 (2016): 251–60.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547016632537.
Sardo, M. “Evaluation of the Bristol Bright Night 2015 (BBN15).” Project Report. Bristol, Uk:
University of the West of England, 2016. http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/28806.
Sardo, M., A. Grand, M. Sardo, and A. Grand. “Evaluation of the Wellcome Trust Strand at the
Latitude Festival 2015.” Report or Working Paper, September 30, 2015.
http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/27685/.
Venugopal, Sarah, and Helen Featherstone. “Einstein’s Garden: An Exploration of Visitors’ Cultural
Associations of a Science Event at an Arts Festival.” UWE Science Communication Postgraduate
Papers 2 (2014): 75–83.

25

Descriptive resources

Grand, Ann, and Ana Margarida Sardo. “What Works in the Field? Evaluating Informal Science
Events.” Frontiers in Communication 2 (2017). https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2017.00022.
Riise, Jan, and Leonardo Alfonsi. “From Liquid Nitrogen to Public Engagement and City Planning: The
Changing Role of Science Events.” JCOM:Journal of Science Communication 13, no. 4 (2014).
https://jcom.sissa.it/archive/13/04/JCOM_1304_2014_C01/JCOM_1304_2014_C03.
Robinson, Matthew T., Nattapat Jatupornpimol, Sandy Sachaphimukh, Maria Lönnkvist, Andrea
Ruecker, and Phaik Yeong Cheah. “The First Pint of Science Festival in Asia.” Science
Communication 39, no. 6 (2017): 810–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547017739907.
Schmidt, Markus, Angela Meyer, and Amelie Cserer. “The Bio:Fiction Film Festival: Sensing How a
Debate about Synthetic Biology Might Evolve.” Public Understanding of Science 24, no. 5 (2015):
619–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662513503772.
Wiehe, Ben. “When Science Makes Us Who We Are: Known and Speculative Impacts of Science
Festivals.” JCOM:Journal of Science Communication 13, no. 4 (2014).
https://jcom.sissa.it/archive/13/04/JCOM_1304_2014_C01/JCOM_1304_2014_C02.

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