Abstract:

Introduction:
Kano et al. (2013) compared participants of science cafés and other science-related events with random sample of the national online survey and found that a group of people highly interested in science and technology overpopulated such science events. Further, they emphasized three points that we should consider to increase the participation ratio of people with low interest:
(1) include everyday life topics,
(2) connect science and technology with other fields,
(3) provide refreshments for the participants to feel relaxed.

Purpose:
In this paper, the author attempted to clarify the effect of these factors and propose an alternative method to attract people from low-interest groups with empirical field studies. The author introduced two types of field experiments.

Field experiment 1:
The author and her lab students held an interactive science café in 2018, which included factors proposed by Kano et al. (2013) to attract people with low interest. The targeted participants for the science café ranged from upper grade students of an elementary school to adults.

Field experiment 2:
A new type of science event named “science caravan” was introduced, which was a packaged workshop program that could be held at any place in the field experiment. The event was held in two places: a science museum—where people with high-interest would visit—and a local festival—which was not related to science topics. The targeted participants ranged from elementary school children to adults.

Research methods:
Participants were asked to complete a set of questionnaire. In addition, undergraduate students of the lab were requested to prepare field notes of participatory observation.

Results:
Regarding field experiment 1, though the program of the science café was highly evaluated, out of the seventeen voluntary participants, most were highly interested. In field experiment 2, there were 218 participants in the two workshop events. After the responses of pre-school children were removed, 198 respondents (33 children and 42 adults in the festival workshop, and 60 children and 63 adults in the museum) remained. The aim of this study was partly supported. Participants at the science museum tended to admit, “I want to learn science” more than their festival counterparts. There were no statistical differences in several other questions, maybe because most respondents from both sites answered in the affirmative.

Discussion:
In the first field experiment, as in other science cafés, most voluntary participants displayed high interest, despite keen efforts to reach the low-interest level. It seems that active participation itself is difficult for the low-interest group.
The new style of science workshop—science caravan—may be a solution to reduce the participation cost, especially for the low-interest group. Even in the science caravan, people with no interest in science may not participate. Although there may still be a self-selection process, it might widen the chance of scientific experience for those who do not have it at all otherwise.

Keywords:

Low-interest, High-interest, Science café, Science caravan, Science communication.