Misalignment Between Citizen Science Project Leaders and Their Organizations Increases the Challenges They Face Achieving Project Outcomes

Abstract

Citizen science values include increasing natural resource management, enabling large-scale research, promoting education and scientific literacy, addressing environmental injustice, mitigating climate change, and more. Project leaders often work toward multiple outcomes at once and must prioritize their focus. Prioritization is complicated given the competing interests of scientists, volunteers, funders, and others. According to role conflict theory, this negatively affects the ability of project leaders to carry out their jobs. We conducted a phenomenological study with project leaders (n = 65) to understand perceptions as they relate to diverse goals and interests. Project leaders who described misalignment between their own goals and what they perceived to be their organization’s goals more frequently reported challenges related to balancing scientists’ and volunteers’ interests, convincing colleagues to trust data, and being part-time employees. Given these results, we describe important implications for how organizations engaging in citizen science can address these challenges and better achieve goals.