To know about science is to love it? Unraveling cause–effect relationships between knowledge and attitudes toward science in citizen science on urban wildlife ecology

Abstract

Nowadays, citizens collaborate increasingly with scientists in citizen science (CS) projects on environmental issues. CS projects often have educational goals and aim to increase citizens' knowledge with the ultimate goal of fostering positive attitudes toward science. To date, little is known about the extent to which CS projects strengthen the positive interrelationship between knowledge and attitudes. Based on previous research, it has been suggested that the knowledge–attitude relationship could be further examined by focusing on different aspects: (1) different attitudinal domains, (2) topic‐specific knowledge, and (3) its direction. Our study contributes to the clarification of the interrelation between scientific knowledge and attitudes toward science within the specific domain of urban wildlife ecology using cross‐lagged panel analyses. We collected survey data on five attitudinal domains, topic‐specific knowledge, scientific reasoning abilities, and epistemological beliefs from N = 303 participants before and after they participated in a CS project on urban wildlife ecology. Participants collected and analyzed data on terrestrial mammals in a German metropolitan city. Our results provide evidence for the relationship between knowledge and attitudes due to the topic‐specificity of knowledge in CS projects (e.g., wildlife ecology). Our method provided a rigorous assessment of the direction of the knowledge–attitude relationship and showed that topic‐specific knowledge was a predictor of more positive attitudes toward science.

The Known Unknowns: What Citizen Science Projects in Germany Know about Their Volunteers—And What They Don’t Know

“…In the scheme "Wildlife Researchers", no response rate was published, but the dropout rate between the first and the second survey was 43.7%. The datasets of 303 participants could be analysed, of which were 41.3% male, 58.4% female, and 66.7% with an academic degree [28]. Even though these response rates seem to be quite high overall, they are self-selected samples and therefore they provide only a limited picture of the diversity of the participants.…”

“…In practice, the extent to which citizens can or want to move and develop between different roles and activities, or even consciously or unconsciously remain at one of the levels, is handled very differently by the individuals and/or the projects. This was underlined in a German longitudinal study in a project on urban wildlife ecology with the aim of unravelling the knowledge-attitude relationship [28]. On the other hand, we know, especially from the many biodiversity monitoring projects, that they also rely on the voluntary cooperation of people who already have a high level of expertise.…”

“…However, we see two main difficulties: the representativeness and the time factor. Even though response rates in accompanying research seem to be quite high overall [19,[26][27][28], these data represent self-selected samples and provide only a limited picture of the diversity of the participants. The data support the image of male and well-educated participants.…”

Weißbuch Citizen Science Strategie 2030 für Deutschland

“…Ebenso bietet Citizen Science viele Vorteile für die Gesellschaft: Durch aktive Teilhabe können Bürger:innen ihr Wissen über verschiedene Themenbereiche weitergeben und verbessern und dabei auch die Möglichkeiten und die Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Methoden und Arbeitsweisen besser verstehen [6]. Ein gestärktes Wissenschaftsverständnis wiederum kann auch das Vertrauen der Gesellschaft in die Wissenschaft und eine positivere Einstellung zu Wissenschaften fördern [7,8,9]. Aktive Bürgerbeteiligung in Citizen Science-Projekten dient weiterhin dem "empowerment" der Akteur:innen durch selbstbestimmtes Bearbeiten und Analysieren von gesellschaftspolitischen Lösungsansätzen dort, wo sie auch umgesetzt werden können [10,11].…”

Context Matters: Accounting for Item Features in the Assessment of Citizen Scientists’ Scientific Reasoning Skills

“…Hence, SR skills comprise a subset of skills that are less common to CS projects than other science inquiry skills (Stylinski et al 2020). In CS projects that involve participants in inquiry approaches for learning (e.g., Aristeidou et al 2020), SR skills might foster the achievement of other ILOs (Edwards et al 2017), for example, behavioral beliefs (Bruckermann et al 2021).…”