Abstract
The effects of citizen science are wide ranging, influencing science, society, the economy, the environment, as well as individual participants. However, in many citizen science projects, impact evaluation is still overly simplistic. This is particularly the case when assessing the impact of participation in citizen science on the environmental attitudes, behaviour and knowledge of citizen scientists. In an attempt to bridge the gap between the state of the art in relevant scientific fields and citizen science, this systematic literature review identified best practices and approaches in the field of environmental psychology for measuring environmental attitudes, behaviour and knowledge. From the literature, five relevant and validated approaches were identified that can be used to measure changes in attitudes, behaviour and knowledge in citizen science projects. This would allow for improved understanding of the impacts of citizen science, as well as for improved project evaluation as a whole.
Highlights
Citizen science is increasingly popular and has been defined and interpreted in various ways
The systematic literature review presented in this paper aimed to assess the state of the art of measuring environmental attitudes, behaviour and knowledge, and analyse to what degree the currently available measurement approaches can be applied to evaluate the impact of citizen science
It is agreed that environmental attitudes are comparable to attitudes to other topics
Summary
Citizen science is increasingly popular and has been defined and interpreted in various ways. Citizens can play a voluntary, but highly active role in the process, with input ranging from data. A range of studies have been conducted to assess the impact of citizen science interventions. These studies have covered a variety of impacts, including: feelings of environmental stewardship in participants [92], economic activity and the creation of jobs [60], scientific outcomes and resulting publications [17], and participant learning outcomes [113]. The exact impacts of Somerwill and Wehn Environmental Sciences Europe (2022) 34:18 citizen science are still to be fully and comprehensively understood [65], while up to date impact assessment methods and frameworks are not yet fully integrated in practice
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