Leve de Variatie! Een onderzoek naar de beleving van en de publiciteit rondom Oktober Kennismaand 2010

Leve de Variatie! Een onderzoek naar de beleving van en de publiciteit rondom Oktober Kennismaand 2010 The until 2007 yearly organized Science Week aimed at the enhancement of the knowledge of scientific and technological developments by the public has from 2008 on developed into a month of activities: Oktober Kennismaand (October- Month of Knowledge). In order to reach a wide audience a good communication strategy that reaches and appeals to a wide audience is imperative. Therefore the campaign of Oktober Kennismaand 2010 was evaluated. The evaluation research comprised a questionnaire that was distributed among 507 (adult) visitors of the different activities during the month October and 69 oral interviews with visiting children (between 6 and 16 years) in the period between October 1 and 31, 2010. The researchers used the data collected by the survey and the interviews to answer the following questions: 1) Who are the visitors of Oktober Kennismaand? 2) To what extent was the publicity campaign a success and what were the roles played by the different media used in this campaign? 3) How do visitors experience the activities of Oktober Kennismaand, and how do they evaluate them? The activities during Oktober Kennismaand 2010 attracted all together around 250.000 visitors. The success of the promotion campaign in 2010 is measured by the effectiveness of the different communication channels. The main sources of information for Oktober Kennismaand appear to be informal channels such as family and acquaintances (39%). Furthermore information by newspapers and advertisements (17%), and the experiences of a visit to the Science Week in previous years (17%) have informed the respondents about Oktober Kennismaand in 2010. Although the informational role of the website www.oktoberkennismaand.nl is still modest in 2010 a considerable part of the respondents (61%) indicated that they would like to be informed in the future about activities during Oktober Kennismaand by email or Internet in general. In that respect it is interesting to learn that around 67 percent of the visitors indicated to use social network sites every now and then. Not surprisingly, for the youngsters among the visitors in 2010 the school plays, apart from informal channels (parents, friends, acquaintances), also an important role as an information source. The research findings indicate that he activities during Oktober Kennismaand 2010 attracted a wide audience, of which the profile (age, sex, educational level) is almost identical with the visitors profile of Oktober Kennismaand 2009 and 2008. Young people and adults, an equal amount of men and women visited activities all through the Netherlands. Also in 2010 the higher educated are overrepresented among the visitors. Considering the type of activities, the preference of the visitors, regardless of age, points to activities like creating things themselves, doing tests, viewing experiments or participating in it, listening and the like. As opposed to children, adults also prefer visiting a lecture. Adults evaluate Oktober Kennismaand in the first place as interesting, instructive and pleasant. Children find the activities in the first place entertaining, 10 and consider the variety of activities pleasant. Both children and adult visitors evaluate the activities in which they have been participating highly positive! The research findings show that Oktober Kennismaand offers what it promises: a variety in attractive, interesting and pleasant activities for young and old, and consequently, like one of the visitors said, “a discovery tour full of variation” through the world of science and technology