1. Cultivating citizen scientists:
How does working singly or in pairs, and the type of
feedback influence motivation and contribution?
Human-Computer
Interaction
Laboratory
Yurong He, Carol Boston, Jennifer Preece, Anne Bowser, Dana Rotman, Derek Hansen

2. Citizen science
Scientists invite citizens to voluntarily
contribute to scientific projects
3http://www.birdsleuth.org/about-us/

3. Citizen science challenges
MORE
Volunteers !
Data !
4
[e.g., Crowston, 2013; Wiggins, 2013]

4. Previous research
This study
5
Existing volunteers
Potential volunteers

5. 6
Does cultivating citizen
scientists work?

6. 7
Science, Technology, and Society
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=544955375545022&set=pb.115969965110234.-2207520000.1369064903.&type=3&theater
(74 freshmen)

7. One-month citizen science project simulation:
8
A field experiment
Week 1 & 2: Learn it!
What is citizen science?
Week 3 & 4: Do it!
Collecting data for “Tree and
Bird Observation on Campus”

8. 9
Easy: tree Difficult: bird Paper form Digital photo
Collecting scientific data
How?What?

9. Way of working in week 3 &4 :
• Working in a pair
• Working alone
Researchers’ feedback in week 4:
• Positive feedback
• Positive directive feedback
10
[Zhu et al. 2013]
Independent variables

10. 11
Volunteers’ motivation
• Survey
Volunteers’ data quantity
• Number of words on paper form
• Number of photos
Dependent variables

11. Motivation
12
[Guay et al. 2000]
Intrinsic
motivation
e.g. “I engaged in this activity because I think
that this activity is interesting”
Identified
regulation
e.g. “I engaged in this activity because I
believe that this activity is important for me”
External
regulation
e.g. “I engaged in this activity because I am
supposed to do it”
Amotivation
e.g. “There may be good reasons to do this
activity, but personally I don’t see any.”

12. 13
Motivation results
• Week 3: Working in a pair
“interesting”
“important to me”
• Week 4: Positive directive feedback
“don’t see any good reasons” lower
higher
[Intrinsic motivation]
[Identified regulation]
[Amotivation]

13. 15
Data quantity results
Week3:
No difference between
working alone and in a pair

14. Variables
(Easy) (Difficult)
Paper
form
Photo
Paper
form
Photo
Pair ND
(no difference)
ND ND More
Positive directive
Feedback More More More ND
Interaction Yes N N Yes
16
Data quantity results
Week 4:

15. 18
Data quantity results
Tree & Paper form Bird & Photo

16. Interview result
Working in a pair: Working alone:
Reasons for…
19
“ If someone was there, it was a lot
more appealing and more fun.” (P19)
“Some of the other people in the class
don’t take it as serious as I might like
to. It’s kind of de-motivational being
with others” (P7)
“Not lonely, there is somebody you
can discuss with when you are
observing [trees and birds]” (P17)
“Cause you can think about it more,
you don’t have to always
communicate your thoughts” (P26)

17. Implication for citizen science
• Volunteers’ ways of working on citizen
science
• Difficulty of citizen science tasks
• Type of feedback
20
Acknowledgement
NSF : grant # 0968546.
Contact Me:
yrhe@umd.edu
http://biotrackers.net/