TY - JOUR

T1 - I’m fine with collecting data

T2 - Engagement profiles differ depending on scientific activities in an online community of a citizen science project

AU - Bruckermann, Till

AU - Greving, Hannah

AU - Stillfried, Milena

AU - Schumann, Anke

AU - Brandt, Miriam

AU - Harms, Ute

N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF; https://www.bmbf.de) under grant numbers 01|O1725 (MB), 01|O1727 (UH), 01| O1728 (Joachim Kimmerle). The publication of this article was funded by the Open Access Fund of the Leibniz Universität Hannover. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

PY - 2022/10/10

Y1 - 2022/10/10

N2 - Digital technologies facilitate collaboration between citizens and scientists in citizen science (CS) projects. Besides the facilitation of data transmission and access, digital technologies promote novel formats for education in CS by including citizens in the process of collecting, analyzing, and discussing data. It is usually assumed that citizens profit more from CS the more they participate in the different steps of the scientific process. However, it has so far not been analyzed whether citizens actually engage in these steps. Therefore, we investigated citizens' actual engagement in different scientific steps online (i.e., data collection and data analysis) in two field studies of a CS project. We then compared them with other CS projects. We analyzed behavioral engagement patterns of N = 273 participants with activity logs and cluster analyses. Opportunities to engage in different steps of the scientific process increased participants' overall commitment compared to contributory CS projects. Yet, despite their increased commitment, participants' engagement was only more active for data collection but not for data analysis. We discuss how participants' perceived role as data collectors influenced their actual engagement in the scientific steps. To conclude, citizens may need support to change their role from data collectors to data inquirers.

AB - Digital technologies facilitate collaboration between citizens and scientists in citizen science (CS) projects. Besides the facilitation of data transmission and access, digital technologies promote novel formats for education in CS by including citizens in the process of collecting, analyzing, and discussing data. It is usually assumed that citizens profit more from CS the more they participate in the different steps of the scientific process. However, it has so far not been analyzed whether citizens actually engage in these steps. Therefore, we investigated citizens' actual engagement in different scientific steps online (i.e., data collection and data analysis) in two field studies of a CS project. We then compared them with other CS projects. We analyzed behavioral engagement patterns of N = 273 participants with activity logs and cluster analyses. Opportunities to engage in different steps of the scientific process increased participants' overall commitment compared to contributory CS projects. Yet, despite their increased commitment, participants' engagement was only more active for data collection but not for data analysis. We discuss how participants' perceived role as data collectors influenced their actual engagement in the scientific steps. To conclude, citizens may need support to change their role from data collectors to data inquirers.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85139573235&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0275785

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0275785

M3 - Article

VL - 17

JO - PLoS ONE

JF - PLoS ONE

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 10

M1 - e0275785

ER -