Target Audience Research

To identify studies of adult outreach and education that could claim to identify best education practices for specific audiences, we reviewed thousands of studies – through an extensive search of multiple education, environmental, resource, and resource management journals and journal databases. Below you can find answers to your questions about the 2004 study and related website topics. You can also link to this information via the navigation panel.

We undertook the original study because while many environmental education research papers recommend education practices, few of these papers focus on adult audiences, and few identify education practices that are best for specific audience groups. And few resource management studies test specific education practices, relying instead on a recommendation that “good resource management needs to be accompanied by outreach to the public or to a target audience”.

Answers to questions about target audience research:

• What is a target audience?

• Use target audience information in planning your outreach initiative:
  • Gather your own information about a target audience. Refer to resources on this website: Plan, Identify the Target Audience, and Changing Public Behavior Self-Study Module: Step 4
  • Use study-specific research summaries for one or more of the 15 target audiences
  • Search the target audience database

• Read a description of our search methods:
  • Literature Search for Audience-Specific Best Education Practices

• Review our research methods, analysis and conclusions: Outreach that Makes a Difference! Target Audiences for Water Education — A Research Meta-Analysis; and Meta-Analysis Appendix D (M. Stevens & E. Andrews, 2006)

• View references and abstracts for target audience research:
  • Target Audience Research References and Abstracts 51pp., 231 KB