Abstract
Digital citizen science platforms are prominent examples of modern volunteerism that provide people with opportunities to observe natural phenomena and to engage in scientific processes. In this study, we explore the values and motivations underlying sustained participation in digital citizen science projects through the lenses of two social psychology theories (Schwartz’s Human Values Theory and Self-Determination Theory). We present in-depth analyses of interviews with 15 long-term volunteers in two digital citizen science initiatives (Jarviwiki and Safecast) that have been collecting environmental data for a decade in Finland and Japan. Our results advance the understanding of the values underpinning motivations. Our analyses show that openness-to-change values, such as self-direction, are important for initial participation, yet a diverse range of values, except for power, play a role in sustaining participation. Our study also shows that the values related to sustained participation are linked with extrinsic motivations, suggesting that when extrinsic motivators are self-directed, people will not only perform tasks willingly and enthusiastically but also in a sustained manner. Conceptualizing the behavioral continuum that drives volunteering actions provides practical insights that can assist the design, development, and evaluation of digital citizen science platforms.
Highlights
Technology enables public participation (Rotman et al 2014a; Ruge 2015), by helping people to engage in projects that serve a breadth of purposes, in contexts such as open governance, community action, and participatory science
Case study design The main goal of this study was to learn more about why people join and participate actively for years in digital citizen science projects
RQ 1: What motivates participation in a digital citizen science initiative? Below we report on the motivations for participating in each case, including initial participation and sustained participation
Summary
Technology enables public participation (Rotman et al 2014a; Ruge 2015), by helping people to engage in projects that serve a breadth of purposes, in contexts such as open governance, community action, and participatory science. Faces numerous challenges including privacy and security concerns (Christin et al 2011; Krontiris et al 2014), data quality and interoperability issues (Loss et al 2015; Foody et al 2017), lack of reusable development methods and frameworks (Heggen 2013; Zaman and De Meuter 2015), and a need for sustained participation (Foody et al 2017; Jennett and Cox 2018; Orchard 2018) This last challenge is pivotal because without participation, these projects cannot exist
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