21:T444,

Since first being introduced in the mid 1990s, the term “citizen science”—the intentional engagement of the public in scientific research—has seen phenomenal growth as measured by the number of projects developed, people involved, and articles published. In addition to contributing to scientific knowledge, many citizen science projects attempt to achieve learning outcomes among their participants, however, little guidance is available for practitioners regarding the types of learning that can be supported through citizen science or the measuring of learning outcomes. This study provides empirical data to understand how intended learning outcomes first described by the informal science education field have been employed and measured within the citizen science field. We also present a framework for describing learning outcomes that should help citizen science practitioners, researchers, and evaluators in designing projects and in studying and evaluating their impacts. This is a first step in building evaluation capacity across the field of citizen science.22:T4bf,

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 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.

23:T75a,

#	Concept	H-Index	Publications	Citations
1	Education	24	37	2K
2	Engineering	18	29	891
3	Arts	4	4	262
4	Law	2	2	71
5	Management	2	2	52

	Year	Citations

About

Top Concepts