The CSI Effect

Richard Jones and Arthur Bangert

As a science teacher, I am sure that if you were asked to draw a scientist today you would not revert back to the same image that you had in your mind’s eye during your middle school years. What would your current mental image of a scientist reflect? Would the scientist you draw be representative of your own culture and gender, or would your drawing represent what Chambers (1983) refers to as the standard image of a scientist: a white male wearing a lab coat and glasses, with unkempt hair? If you were to ask your own students to draw a scientist, what would you expect to see?

Until recently, the vast majority of female student images of scientists were versions of white males working alone in laboratory settings (Barman et al. 1997). Surprisingly, even female scientists, for the most part, draw stereotypical Einstein-type images that are not realistic representations of themselves actively engaged in a scientific profession (Nuno 1998). We asked the question, “What phenomenon is responsible for the recent change in female students’ mental images of scientists?” One plausible answer to this question is the popularity of the Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) television series that first appeared in October of 2000. CSI was the first series to give equal representation to both males and females as laboratory scientists. This genre of television programming has expanded to include several CSI spin-offs, as well as other series such as Bones and Crossing Jordan, which also portray women as investigative laboratory scientists.

The CSI effect

We suggest that CSI, a public mass media product, and other television programming have greatly influenced how students, especially female students, perceive scientists at work. Perhaps the increased airing of television programs focusing on laboratory sciences has caused student perceptions of scientists to shift away from the “mad scientist” image to one that is more realistic. This notion seems to suggest that, today, more students hold mental images of scientists that are aligned with their own gender and typical features, rather than stereotypic “mad scientist” images promoted by horror films such as the 1931 version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein novel.

Evidence for the CSI effect was found in drawings from 388 middle school students asked to participate in the Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST) activity created by Chambers (1983). We began our study with drawings obtained from a convenience sample of 265 science students. These 7th-grade (n = 131), 9th-grade (n = 120), and 11th-grade (n = 14) students were enrolled in the classrooms of teachers participating in eMSS (electronic Mentoring for Student Success), an NSF-funded program designed to provide support to early-career science teachers. Students participating in this research effort attended schools with approximately equal proportions of male and female students. The ethnicity of students included Caucasian (82.5%), Native American (7%), Hispanic (5%), African American (3%), and Asian American (2.5%). Twenty-eight percent of students were eligible to receive free or reduced lunch. Thirteen percent of students participating in this study were receiving special education services (Montana Office of Public Instruction 2006).

Procedures and results

The DAST activity was administered by supplying students with a blank sheet of paper, a variety of writing utensils (pen, pencil, colored pencils, crayons, and color markers) and then asking them to draw what they think a scientist looks like. The completed drawings were collected and evaluated using the Draw-A-Scientist Test Checklist Revised (DAST-CR), a modified version of the original DAST, which identifies 10 major stereotypical characteristics of scientists rather than the 15 originally identified by Chambers (see Figure 1). Our rationale for the use of a more typical and efficient set of criteria was based on the work of Matkins (1996), which suggests that student drawings rarely include all 15 features identified by Chambers. Results from a pilot study we conducted were used to identify the 10 most frequently identified traits for this current research effort. Features such as test tubes, beakers, and other scientific tools represented in drawings were combined into one category labeled “symbols of science.”

The most striking finding from our initial study was that 7th-grade female students drew a much greater percentage of female scientists than either the 9th- or 11th-grade female students. Just over half (51.6%) of the images authored by seventh-grade girls were clearly identified as female in gender. The unexpected balance in gender representation found in these drawings prompted us to conduct a follow-up study to verify our initial findings. We then selected another group of seventh-grade students (n = 123) to complete the DAST. This verification study found that 27 of the 54 seventh-grade girls (50%) drew images of female scientists, nearly duplicating the results from the first group.

Interview results

Twelve female students, eight who drew atypical images (female scientists) and four who drew stereotypical images (male scientists), were selected to participate in interviews intended to gather more detailed explanations about the factors contributing to their perceptions of scientists. All student interviews began with the following three questions:

1. I want to ask you a couple of questions about the drawing that you did for your teacher about a month ago. Is that OK?
2. Can you tell me why you drew the image that you did?
3. There are many places where we get ideas about what a scientist looks like. Could you tell me where you get your ideas?

One seventh-grade girl who drew a female scientist was asked how she felt that the media (television) influenced her image of scientists. She replied, “Maybe some girls want to have a profession in science. Or like, I don’t know, you just see more of them today. Like in TV, like on CSI, forensics. They make it look kind of fun. Like, I want to do something like that on CSI how they solve mysteries.’’ Another girl said, “Killer Instinct is a good show; they have lots of scientists working on different things like fingerprints and I would like to do that.” Comments by these girls provide solid support for our belief that media events such as CSI and similar shows have had a substantial influence on female middle school students’ interest in occupations related to laboratory sciences. It is clear that these comments demonstrate the impact of current media events on female students’ mental images of scientists.

In general, the images produced by most of the participants in this study are similar to the stereotypical images of scientists revealed in the previous studies conducted by Chambers (1983) and Finson, Beaver, and Cramond (1995). However, this was clearly not the case for the seventh-grade girls. Our initial study found that the 7th-grade girls drew considerably more female scientists than the 9th- and 11th-grade girls.

One explanation offered for the higher frequency of female scientists produced by seventh-grade girls is that as students progress through successively higher grade levels, their images of a scientist become more stereotypical (Schibeci and Sorenson 1983). The fact that 7th-grade students had less exposure to science instruction than the 9th- or 11th-grade students suggests that their mental images of the stereotypical scientist were less firmly established, allowing for other factors to influence their mental image of scientific professionals.

The results of both our pilot study and the verification study agree with Schibeci and Sorenson’s (1983) contention that more instruction, in this case years of schooling, increases the likelihood that students’ images of scientists will display more stereotypical features. It would be interesting to study the possible longitudinal changes these students have in their perceptions of scientific professionals over the next few years to determine if their nonstereotypical images are maintained. Our findings suggest, as did Symington and Spulring’s (1990) study, that student perceptions of scientists may be more related to a public stereotype of scientists than to teachers’ efforts in the classroom, or even to scientists’ roles in real-world contexts.

It is our conclusion that the media has had considerable impact on females’ mental images of scientists since the last major studies on the subject (e.g., Chambers 1983). However, we cannot rule out the long-term effects of Title IX legislation. Although issues related to gender equity have been emphasized for some time, girls only recently have been exposed to television shows such as CSI where women are portrayed in science roles that are viewed as attractive career choices. According to Barman et al. (1997), the passage of Title IX was intended to end discrimination on the basis of gender and prompted a concerted effort by publishers of textbooks to place inclusive images of women and other minorities engaged in and having active roles in science. Science textbooks published during the 1970s and 1980s also attempted to show that science careers were reasonable expectations for students by including images of “regular people in everyday clothes, engaged in laboratory science activities” (Barman et al. 1997).

Children’s literature has also represented scientists as females. For example, the main character of the Magic School Bus (Moore and Enik 2000) is Ms. Frizzel, a woman scientist who is engaged in scientific discovery with her elementary students. Although the Magic School Bus series uses a female character as a scientist, Ms. Frizzel is still represented with several stereotypical features of scientists, including wild hair and a lab coat. One reason why the Magic School Bus series may not have had as much of an impact on girls’ images of scientists is that Ms. Frizzel is a cartoon character and is most likely not perceived as a real person. On the other hand, the CSI series cast women in authentic roles as scientists engaged in laboratory activities that represent those found in real-life contexts.

The results from our study suggest that the change in the mental images of scientists for middle school girls is primarily due to the recent propagation of the CSI-type television series that have appeared over the last several years. This new characterization of scientists by the current media is very different from that represented in a study conducted by Gerbner (1987) in the late 1980s, which suggested that television programming mainly characterized scientists as odd and peculiar people working in undesirable careers. Further evidence to support our claim about the influence of the current media on perceptions of scientists comes from an informal conversation held with a 12th-grade student who was asked about her future college plans. The student responded that she was considering a career in forensic chemistry. In response to her comment, the author remarked in a flippant manner, “I bet that is because of CSI!” The student responded, “Yes, what do you expect?” When queried further, the student talked about how there has been an “explosion” in forensic science programs nationally, and that the department head at one of the universities the student was interested in attending indicated that he had created a degree program in forensic chemistry due to the increased interest over the last two years and was just waiting for program approval.

Conclusion

Our findings indicate that middle school girls’ global view of scientists is more balanced in terms of gender and less stereotypical than has been observed in the past. The change in females’ perceptions of scientists identified by this research is encouraging and represents a shift toward a more positive image of scientists and their professional activities. But are these results a regional anomaly? Would the middle school females in your school produce results that reflect this perceived change in image? We encourage teachers in the United States and overseas to use the DAST and the DAST-CR to measure the perceptions of scientists for their own students and to share those results with us as we attempt to uncover the factors that influence female middle school students’ perceptions of scientists. Awareness of these factors will be important for informing the media, schools, and professional organizations about the efforts they can make to portray scientists as a more diverse and less stereotyped group of professionals. An authentic and engaging worldview of scientists is critical for motivating students’ interests toward pursuing careers in science, mathematics, and other technologies where there is a critical shortage of trained professionals.

Richard Jones (rmjones@metnet.mt.gov) is a science educator at Billings Senior High School–Freshman Academy in Billings, Montana. Arthur Bangert (abangert@montana.edu) is an assistant professor in the department of education at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana.

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