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Public Perceptions of Physics: Institute Of Physics

Introduction

The IOP is a scientific membership organisation devoted to increasing the understanding and application of physics. The vision of the Institute’s Physics in Society programme was to: “Change public perceptions of physics: Physics can, and does, make a difference.”

The objectives for this research were to:

Understand what, if anything, people understand by the word ‘physics’.
Understand what aspects of physics people find interesting (whether they label them as physics or not).
Know how people perceive physics (whatever they understand by it) and start to understand more why these perceptions and attitudes exist.
Understand how to narrow any gap between people’s current perceptions and the reality (i.e. what physicists and the IOP think physics is).
Develop a series of questions that can be added to all future Physics in Society project evaluations so that IOP can understand the differing impacts on peoples’ perceptions of physics of individual projects as well as the impact of the programme as a whole.

Methodology

The project comprised:

a review of existing UK research on the general public’s knowledge of, and attitudes towards, physics and how this compares with other science subjects;
eight focus groups with members of the general public (aged 19+); and
a telephone omnibus survey of attitudes of the general publics to physics in order to establish a baseline against which change can be measured.

Knowledge of physics

The public’s knowledge of physics was limited and they felt less knowledgeable about physics than about biology and chemistry. Once focus group participants had decided which topics from a list they thought were physics, they saw them as interesting, useful and related to advances in technology. Those who had some impression of physics associated it with school science, formulae and theories and different types of power.

Only half of survey respondents and few focus group participants had any idea of what physicists do. Despite this lack of knowledge, participants considered physicists, like all scientists, to be trustworthy. Younger people and those from lower social grades/less well educated were less knowledgeable of physics and less likely to have any concept about what physicists’ work involves.

General perceptions of physics

General perceptions of physics were positive, but not quite as positive as views on science in general. Men and those in higher social grades/more highly educated tended to be more positive about physics than women and those in lower social grades/less well educated. Physics was often thought to be harder to relate to than biology and chemistry, particularly for women. General science topics that participants had heard about tended to relate to the environment and climate change. The physics topics that were spontaneously mentioned were advances in telecommunications and technology which were thought to have benefited society.

Interest in physics

Having an understanding of physics was considered to be important by the majority of the public, although a significant number felt that it was too complicated for them to personally understand. Interest in a topic typically depended on: importance and effects on individuals and/or society; potential benefits and concerns; familiarity with a topic; and personal interest. In general, men, older people, those in higher social grades and with higher levels of education were likely to be more interested in, and knowledgeable about, physics than women, younger people and those with lower levels of education and from lower social grades.

The ‘importance’ of a topic as judged by its impact on individuals and society was at the core of whether or not most individuals found a topic to be interesting. If a topic was in the news it was perceived to be important and therefore interesting. It was considered even more interesting if the topic was likely to have an immediate or short term impact on individuals and/or society. If the potential positive impact of the topic was too long term then it was less interesting to participants as they could not see how it benefited them. If an individual could not relate to the topic, i.e. see how it was useful to them, other individuals or society, then they were less likely to be interested in it. The same was usually the case if a topic could not be understood, as part of the understanding related to usefulness.

Recommendations

Recommendations presented to IoP by PSP are outlined below:

To increase familiarity, physics research needs to have a high profile in the media
Climate change and renewable energy are useful hooks to which the work of physicists can be linked
Potential benefits to individuals and/or society of physics research and how the applications relate to everyday life should be emphasised
Specific physics topics can be targeted at particular audiences
Careers in physics should be promoted to young people and their parents
A figure head for physics would be invaluable for promotion of the subject
Television programmes have an important role to play in promoting physics