Learning Through Citizen Science Enhancing Opportunities by Design (2018) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix A: Demographic Analyses of Citizen Science
Appendix A: Demographic Analyses of Citizen Science
Pages 159-168
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From page 159... ...
, the second is a published analyses of participant data, and the third is an original meta-analysis of published literature on citizen science projects reporting participant data. SCISTARTER 2.0 SciStarter is a Web platform for individuals looking to "find, join, and contribute to science." The platform offers access to more than 2,700 searchable citizen science projects and events, as well as helping interested parties access tools that facilitate project participation (SciStarter, 2018)
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From page 160... ...
and Burgess and colleagues (2017) surveyed biodiversity citizen science projects as part of a large, multiuniversity project funded by the Dimensions of Biodiversity Program within the Division of Environmental Biology at the National Science Foundation (hereafter the Dimensions meta-analysis)
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From page 161... ...
Sample indicates number of project managers responding. SOURCE: Data from Theobald et al.
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From page 162... ...
Projects with a higher than average participation of one or more minority groups were either outside of the United States (e.g., Migrant Watch and Citizen S parrow are two bird-focused citizen science projects in India, with a majority of Asian participants) , or geographically local and linked to a site and/or taxon with high cultural importance (e.g., the Camas Citizen Science Monitoring Program, centered on the Nez Perce National Historical Park's Weippe Prairie Site, is a project of the National Park Service in which high school students monitor camas flowering and incorporate aspects of the cultural and ecological values of this native prairie plant)
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From page 163... ...
2. Engagement and Learning in Environmentally-based Citizen Sci ence: A Mixed Methods Comparative Case Study, a dissertation awarded by Cornell University, focused on participant learning in six citizen science projects (Phillips, 2017)
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From page 164... ...
Because studies reporting both resulted in only a small difference, we included median age if that was the only central tendency measure reported. For studies reporting percent distribution across age classes, we created a median value by multiplying each proportion by the median of the class (e.g., 23 is the median value of the age class 18–29)
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From page 165... ...
with a total person count of 65, 336. There were striking patterns in the reported participant demographics, which generally described a slightly male-biased, overwhelmingly white, and well-educated population with somewhat of a tendency to have previously participated in other projects (see Table A-2)
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From page 166... ...
, one of the sources used in this metaanalysis, found that even within outdoors projects gender skew toward male was apparent in physical versus biological science projects (e.g., CoCoRHaS, a citizen science project focused on collecting daily precipitation data was 80% male)
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From page 167... ...
suggesting that online, crowdsourcing projects may have limited appeal to all age classes. A serious caveat to participant age findings is that demographic information was only available for projects focused on adults and/or the entire participant population.
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From page 168... ...
. Online Citizen Science Projects: An Exploration of Motivation, Contribu tion and Participation (Doctoral dissertation)
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