During my academic career as a PhD student and postdoc, I published several scientific papers, spoke at conferences and gave endless journal clubs, institute seminars and open research days. Throughout this time and even more now since diving into the world of science communication, one thing always struck me:
As researchers, we often assume that others know the same stuff we do.
We often start talking about our research as if the listener or reader were next to us the entire time we performed our experiments, as if they have read the same papers as us and know the same details about our research topic. And unfortunately, this phenomenon persists when we are engaging with other researchers or people outside of science.
However, every person has a unique scientific background: every person is interested in a different area, has studied a different subject and works in a different field. But as I see it: as a researcher and communicator, it is your responsibility to adapt your communication efforts to your audience so they learn from you.
To help you with this challenging task, we developed the so-called “Pyramid of Learning”. This model can be applied to any communication project from any research field. As long as your goal is to share your knowledge, the Pyramid of Learning is a helpful tool to talk to and connect with your target audience efficiently.
Your research journey and the Pyramid of Learning
When you began your research journey, you gained an undergraduate degree in an area that interested you. Then, you did a postgraduate or maybe a PhD in a specific field, gaining even more knowledge about your favourite topic. With your research, you decided to push through the boundaries of human knowledge.
Now, as an expert in your topic, it’s likely you forgot just HOW MUCH knowledge you accumulated during that journey. You know a lot! The amount of knowledge you have in your niche might be shared by only a dozen people on the planet. Plus, you are always at the edge of human wisdom. Yes, this is a great achievement and definitely something to be proud of. But, as Erasmus said:
“There is no joy in possession without sharing.”
Why sharing scientific knowledge matters
As a scientist, it’s your mission to tell others about the amazing results and knowledge you’ve gained from your research. If learning is the main purpose of research, not only do you get to learn from your experiments and research, but others should do so too.
This includes fellow scientists as well as people outside of science. A scientist’s goal should be to empower ALL people to make better and more informed decisions.
However, this is not always easy – I know from experience. Being around other researchers from your niche means you talk science all day long. And indeed, we often forget what it takes to talk about science to people outside our field.
In this case, the Pyramid of Learning model helps you assess your own knowledge and that of your audience. Based on that, you can map and strategise what it will take to close that knowledge gap and help them learn.
Talking to your target audience about science
When starting your science communication project, a well-structured SciComm strategy makes your project sustainable and goal-oriented. This includes thinking about who your target audience is and which format or platform you can use to reach them. Most outreach projects fall within these formats:
- Writing a research paper
- Giving a talk at a conference
- Writing a literature review
- Explaining research on social media
- Talking to friends and family about the project
- Writing a blog post for an online platform or magazine
- Giving a talk at a school
- Speaking on a podcast or with the media
Each of these activities engages a different target audience. Hence, each project requires a unique strategy.
So when planning your science outreach project, your focus should be on your target audience and your goal for them. Only then can you create a sustainable strategy to produce educational and helpful content from which they can learn for their lives.
To better understand this process, let’s start by mapping your own knowledge level within the Pyramid of Learning.
Your scientific knowledge in the Pyramid of Learning
Imagine a pyramid that contains all of your knowledge, including that of your research. When you embarked on your journey, you started at the bottom with broad knowledge about everything and anything. By learning about an area, focusing on a field and studying your research topic, you steadily made your way up in the learning pyramid.
By mastering one level within the pyramid, it became easier for you to learn more, comprehend faster and climb the pyramid. During your research journey, your knowledge became more focused. You accumulated so much knowledge that you eventually reached the tip of the pyramid and thus the boundary of human knowledge.
Your level of knowledge about your research project is located at the top. But in your learning pyramid, other people’s understanding is somewhere below. They might have a rough idea about some concepts in your field, but they are certainly some distance away from the top of your pyramid. Your goal as a science communicator is now to close that gap and lift their knowledge level as far up as possible.
You want your audience to jump from one level of the pyramid to the next. And for this, you want them to learn. The steps to learning are similar to the steps of how you became an expert in your topic. In this learning process, you reach the next higher level by learning about the current one.
Elevate your audience’s scientific knowledge with the Pyramid of Learning
Depending on where your audience starts from in your pyramid and how far up you want to bring them, the knowledge gap you are trying to close will be bigger or smaller. Hence, you will need them to learn more or less, meaning you will need to explain a small detail or a complex concept.
As your audience learns, it will lift their level of knowledge and bring them to the goal of your science communication project. This makes it crucial for you to understand where your audience is within your learning pyramid and how big the gap is that you want to close.
I hope you can now better understand why you need to tailor your science communication project to your target audience. Only by understanding where your audience’s level of knowledge is within your learning pyramid, how far up you want them to go and how much they need to learn will you be able to create a sustainable and successful science communication strategy for your project.
After having figured out these first steps, you will need to adapt your project to your audience. For this, you will find practical tools and approaches in the science communication guide on “How to engage and talk to your target audience“. Now that you have understood that each audience requires a distinct strategy to learn, it is up to you to close their knowledge gaps in an engaging and efficient way and help them make sense of the world.
