PONE-D-22-13920Broadening Participation in Science through Arts-Facilitated Experiences at a Cultural FestivalPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Rosin,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

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Jamie Males

Editorial Office

PLOS ONE

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“I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: Mark Rosin is a part owner of Guerilla Science Global and sits on its Board of Directors. The remaining authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest”

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Well-written, clear, and engaging, this article contains an in situ example of people's interaction with an art-framed, science-related experience. The step by step logic of this work results in a substantial scope of data, with testing of assumptions and alternative interpretations built into the design. Given this, my comments are minimal and largely conceptual in nature.

Whether these "serendipitous" (line 508) interactions produce longer-term science persistence or identity is an open question, as the authors are aware. The clarity of this manuscript shows that a broader audience can be reached through this type of approach, which supports pursuing follow-up questions about behavior, perception, and identity development for those not interested nor strictly expecting to engage in science. Yet, people's relationship to science and their science identity is likely more nuanced than the broad way it was measured here. The term "science" may be relatively fixed in people's minds, whereas their actual interaction with science is varied and potentially deep. For example, experience in building, cooking, or gardening involves many scientific processes although may not be viewed as "doing science" by someone by a strictly topic-based definition of science.

All this said, my comment is about whether the authors are hoping these types of events will help broaden how people define science (science can contain an element of art, culture, etc.) or whether it is about deepening someone's interest in "science" as a more fixed area of study. There are assumptions that the authors may be making about the line between science and art as two disciplinary practices, or set of topics, that I'd like to hear more about.

This breadth of defining science does not necessarily take-away from the findings here, as people's perception of "science" as a label is itself a motivating and filtering factor for pursuing science-related activities. Similarly, if there are confounding factors about how "science" is perceived, I do not have a reason to expect there to be a systematic difference between GS Figment and the comparison group. I also recognize there are practical considerations in assessing a more nuanced definition of science in a drop-in type environment--which is no small challenge!

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Reviewer #1: No

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PONE-D-22-13920R1Broadening Participation in Science through Arts-Facilitated Experiences at a Cultural FestivalPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Rosin,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

The reviewers' comments are encouraging and I anticipate edits to be quite minor. Reviewer #3 confirmed the well-received clarity of the article. Reviewer #2 gave recommendations for emphasizing or foreshadowing the framework, contextualizing the current study among related efforts, and suggested small edits to wording and grammar. 

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 17 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Meghan Bathgate, PhD

Guest Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: This is an interesting article that aims to broaden participation to science using a festival or carnival mode. The authors argue this is an emancipatory approach to learning, and also improves access and inclusion. While informal learning opportunities are valuable, many that are clearly science-identified may be missed by people who do not see themselves as science engaged, and therefore may miss out.

The main challenge I see in the piece right now is that the framework and “theory of change” is somehow scattered and embedded throughout the manuscript.

The authors would improve the manuscript by bringing the framework forward (or at least foreshadowing it) earlier on page 4. Specifically, the explanation on page 7 is compelling. However, I am trying to reconcile this with being “stealth” which is a word used in the research question. Stealth assumes trying to “hide” the intent of science, kind of like hiding veggies in a dish and surprising the person later that they ate veggies. Pop up implies unplanned, which can help people impromptu walk into something they might not otherwise intend to engage in.

Neither of these is as clearly “emancipatory” in the way a festival may promote community engagement and a broader invitation. This is revisited at bottom of page 28 and page 34 (carnival mode as emancipatory).

As a reader who is pretty familiar with the power of informal learning experiences, the authors need to put a sharper point on what’s new from this study…and to make it seem less like an evaluation of this activity. Toward this end, the discussion could put forward ideas of the kinds of exhibits or festivals that could help citizen science grab hold of our public.

The second suggestion is some kind of recognition that a STEAM movement already exists- so perhaps some brief contextualization about how guerilla science differs from STEAM. This is on page 4. There is also interesting data presented by the authors and by the personal communication of Jon Miller in Table 9 that suggest that science museum and art gallery attendees might be similar people. I think more could be made of this prospect, possibly in the introduction and then in the discussion.

Finally, small word choices could improve the readability of this article, particularly as the authors consider the opening of the article. There are some small word choices from the abstract through the first few pages that obscure the strength of this piece.

Abstract: Consider changing the word “choir” – in pages 3-4 you do a great job of explaining self-selection. Consider a word choice that brings forward the idea of self-selection. Those unfamiliar with choir metaphor may be confused by this in the abstract.

Page 3, Line: 36-37—That is, audiences who do not actively seek out science learning opportunities. This is a fragment- and should be connected to the previous sentence.

This challenge is motivated by two needs. Possibly rephrase: Addressing this challenge relies upon two principles

Page 20 line 379. One comma should be a period.

Reviewer #3: This study looks at the complicated setting of informal science learning to better understand design strategies for reaching broader audiences, defined by the authors as audiences with less access or inclusion in participating in science engagement.

The study design compares the general visitor to a regional arts festival to those who participate in a specific area of the festival- that incorporate stealth science experiences. It uses descriptive statistics to understand if the intervention reaches the desired broader audiences or if the experience results in self-selection by those with pre-existing science affinity. And builds on prior festival work, this time eliminating two access barriers (cost is free and public transportation is plentiful) while maintaining the stealth experiences that integrate arts and science expertise and content.

The authors cite broader impacts and inclusion as typically addressing race, income, ability, and gender but, in this study, broader audiences are visitors outside the average museum-going behavior. Data show that this arts festival in fact draws a higher than average group of cultural event visitors (science and art) but with more arts aligned than science aligned, yet all had positive outcomes from the stealth experience.

These experiences and this context were shown to be socially motivated, people came in groups, for a fun, active experience with an expectation to learn something, and in the stealth experience, these expectations were met and resulted in higher interest in science as part of that learning.

This study sheds light on our expectations about audiences in different contexts. The authors cite limitations to prior studies in terms of access, this study illuminates other assumptions about who attends a festival (compared to a museum or designated informal science learning context. Was this arts festival a draw to “culture vultures” more than other festivals might be?

Similar studies in an expanding variety of contexts for instance, county fairs; music or dance festivals centered in specific cultural communities; or local sports events where people gather to celebrate the effort of community members, each could have similar stealth experiences built in that teach us how people connect their local activities to science, art and social goals and questions.

This is a well-designed and written study that informs both festival and informal learning institutions in thinking about expectations and motivations as they attempt to engage visitors in science through different frames.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Broadening Participation in Science through Arts-Facilitated Experiences at a Cultural Festival

PONE-D-22-13920R2

Dear Dr. Rosin,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Meghan Bathgate, PhD

Guest Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The authors have thoughtfully and appropriately addressed the comments and questions raised by the reviewers. Thank you for sharing this work!

Reviewers' comments: