Measuring Science Skills Development in New Zealand High School Students After Participation in Citizen Science Using a DEVISE Evaluation Scale

Abstract

A goal of the New Zealand Curriculum is to equip students with the skills needed to use science critically and responsibly as citizens. One method of achieving this is through the participation in citizen science. Measuring the learning outcomes of citizen science experiences therefore, is important to ensure that development of science learning and understanding is occurring while meeting the goals of the science research. Many smaller citizen science projects are not able to develop their own evaluations due to the time and cost required to do so. The DEVISE set of citizen science evaluation instruments present a potential solution to this. Here we used the “DEVISE Skills of Science Inquiry” to measure science skill growth in high school students after participation in the citizen science project Shark Spy. Shark Spy is a collaborative citizen science project were participants take part in each step of the scientific process (introduction, methods, analysis, results, discussion) in collecting information on coastal shark species. Using the Skills of Science Inquiry participants reported that they had developed a better understanding of using science skills to observe, gather, interpret and discuss information. Owing to the structure of the evaluation it is possible to analyse skill development at different difficulty levels, as well as highlight areas of weakness within a citizen science project.