Going Beyond Hooked Participants: The Nibble-and-Drop Framework for Classifying Citizen Science Participation

Abstract

Many citizen science (CS) programs aim to grow and sustain a pool of enthusiastic participants who consistently contribute their efforts to a specific scientific endeavor. Consequently, much research has explored CS participants' motivations and their relationship to participant recruitment and retention. However, much of this research has focused on actively participating citizen scientists. If researchers want to elucidate the relationship between participant factors (such as demographics and motivations) and participant retention, it is necessary to develop a more comprehensive picture of the different degrees of participation in CS. This paper presents a framework for classifying participation throughout the participant's engagement in a CS project/program. We suggest a CS participation model that captures the dynamic nature of participation across an arc of volunteering. Called the Nibble-and-Drop Framework, the model describes multiple exit points and stages of contribution typical of participation in a CS program. Applying the framework to the NASA GLOBE Observer (GO) CS program, we found that it captured the dynamics of participation in a global-scale, mobile, app-based, contributorystyle CS project. The framework guided our analysis of how different participant factors correlate with degrees of participation. We found that participants were motivated to initially participate because they wanted to contribute to NASA research and science. Participants who dropped out of the program at various points often initially engaged through specific collection events and did not feel the need to continue contributing beyond the event; other drop-outs doubted whether their contributions were meaningful, showing again the need to ensure that participants understand the value of their engagement in a CS project.

The STEM Enhancement in Earth Science “Mosquito Mappers” Virtual Internship: Outcomes of Place-Based Engagement with Citizen Science

“…The SEES Mosquito Mappers virtual internship represents a viable pathway towards the development of a more dynamic and diverse population of STEM engaged citizen science volunteers. A well-known challenge that citizen science programs face is in recruiting and retaining a diverse cohort of volunteers (Pandya 2012;Fischer et al, 2021). The common profile of a citizen science volunteer is older, white, and well-educated (Blake et al, 2020;Fischer et al, 2021).…”

“…A well-known challenge that citizen science programs face is in recruiting and retaining a diverse cohort of volunteers (Pandya 2012;Fischer et al, 2021). The common profile of a citizen science volunteer is older, white, and well-educated (Blake et al, 2020;Fischer et al, 2021). It can be a struggle to attract younger and demographically diverse volunteers to citizen science programs.…”

Building International Capacity for Citizen Scientist Engagement in Mosquito Surveillance and Mitigation: The GLOBE Program’s GLOBE Observer Mosquito Habitat Mapper

“…To promote Earth system education as well as build and support a citizen science community of practice, the NASA Earth Science Education Collaborative sponsors the GLOBE Mission Mosquito campaign (2019–) [ 103 ]. The campaign addresses the well-known challenge of recruiting and retaining citizen scientist participants [ 104 , 105 ] by providing personally meaningful opportunities for volunteers to discover, participate, and contribute to the international challenge of mosquito vector surveillance and mitigation. This campaign is supported by a website, monthly webinars, occasional data challenges, educational assets, and public outreach via social media.…”

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“… 2014 and Fischer et al. 2021 ). Project managers could cooperate and coordinate with regard to their volunteer needs and scaffold learning and engagement to jointly foster individual and collective volunteer capacity in citizen science.…”