A Framework for Understanding the Nature of Questions Asked by Audience Participants at Science Cafes

Science Cafes are events designed as public engagement tools that create the opportunity for open dialogue between members of the general public and experts on the issue being discussed at the event. This study explores the nature of questions being asked by audience participants during discussion sessions of Science Cafe events. It was conducted by coding audio recordings of audience participant engagements at 41 Science Cafe events held between 2010 and 2019. The result of this analysis produced a novel taxonomic framework to describe audience participant behaviors in terms of their learning goals. This framework was evaluated by applying it to samples of Science Cafe question data selected by Science Cafe topic theme. Comparisons between question-asking behaviors for specific Science Cafe topics and overall trends in question-asking behaviors for all Science Cafes revealed significant changes in audience participant learning goals when asking questions at Science Cafes centered on different topic types. Implications for understanding Science Cafe audiences and potential developments for Science Cafe events as public science engagement tools are discussed.