Attitudes about public outreach among NASA scientists and engineers

Many scientists engage in public outreach and engagement activities. Outreach is a particularly present concern for scientists and engineers who work directly or indirectly with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as the agency funds numerous outreach programmes. For these programmes to work effectively with the many scientists and engineers interested in contributing to outreach efforts, it is important to understand what motivates these professionals to engage in outreach, the challenges they face in doing this work, and the training they would benefit from. In this article, we report the results of a survey on these topics, which received responses from more than 200 scientists and engineers with expertise related to NASA science. Where possible, we also compare our findings from this population to prior studies of attitudes toward outreach among scientists from other disciplines. We hope these results will inform practices among organisations both within and outside NASA, leading to more effective partnerships between experts in outreach and education, and science and engineering professionals.