Abstract
New citizen science projects are emerging all the time as scientists, policy-makers, and non-governmental organisations see the value of conducting research in this way. Understanding what factors infuence people to take part in citizen science projects and why participants continue their involvement are important questions for the field. Here, we bring together key theories from the volunteering literature with examples from the environmental volunteering and citizen science literature to describe the factors that influence people to start and continue participating in citizen science projects. Good project organi sation is key, and project organisers need to consider potential participants’ motivations; their personal attributes, circumstances and demographics; and how they will become aware of the opportunity. We discuss each of these factors with reference to both the academic and the grey (non-academic) literature, and based on this make general recommendations for those designing and running citizen science projects.
Highlights
Citizen science is the partnering of scientists with volunteers to answer scientific questions (Dickinson et al 2012)
This is a significant gap in our understanding because a) knowledge of what encourages participation is crucial for ensuring that opportunities are attractive to participants, and b) fulfilling people’s motivations for participation can encourage prolonged engagement (Measham and Barnett 2007)
In this paper we have summarised the key literature on this important topic using the general volunteering literature and the more limited literature relating to environmental volunteering and citizen science, and made recommendations for those running citizen science projects about how to recruit and retain diverse participants
Summary
New citizen science projects are emerging all the time as scientists, policy-makers, and non-governmental organisations see the value of conducting research in this way. Understanding what factors influence people to take part in citizen science projects and why participants continue their involvement are important questions for the field. We bring together key theories from the volunteering literature with examples from the environmental volunteering and citizen science literature to describe the factors that influence people to start and continue participating in citizen science projects. Good project organisation is key, and project organisers need to consider potential participants’ motivations; their personal attributes, circumstances and demographics; and how they will become aware of the opportunity. We discuss each of these factors with reference to both the academic and the grey (non-academic) literature, and based on this make general recommendations for those designing and running citizen science projects
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