TY - JOUR
T1 - Identifying learning dimensions in citizen science projects
AU - Oesterheld, Marius
AU - Schmid-Loertzer, Vincent
AU - Calvera-Isabal, Miriam
AU - Amarasinghe, Ishari
AU - Santos, Patricia
AU - Golumbic, Yaela N.
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
PY - 2022/12/16
Y1 - 2022/12/16
N2 - Citizen science (CS) is attracting increasing interest and attention from multiple sectors of society. Educational impacts of participation, such as the development of scientific skills or increased awareness about biodiversity and conservation, are one of the most widely discussed aspects of CS. Whereas most existing studies investigate perceived or observed learning gains of citizen scientists, this paper takes an alternative perspective by examining learning-related aspects in textual self-representations of CS projects-namely project descriptions posted online. Project descriptions were chosen as objects of analysis both because they can easily be accessed and collected through automated web crawling, and because, as key elements of a CS project's online presence, they play an important role in recruiting volunteers. We have thus conducted a qualitative content analysis of 94 project descriptions with the goal of examining what they tell us about learning dimensions associated with participation in these CS projects. Building on the model of individual learning outcomes developed by Phillips et al. in 2018 [1] as a theoretical framework, our analysis shows that some learning dimensions (such as data collection or using technology), are very prominently discussed in the project descriptions we studied, while others (e.g. experimenting, study design, community action) are clearly underrepresented. In other words, the project descriptions analyzed only partially reflect the educational potential of participation in CS. In the discussion section of this paper, we suggest possible explanations and ways in which this issue could be addressed on the level of both project design and project communication.
AB - Citizen science (CS) is attracting increasing interest and attention from multiple sectors of society. Educational impacts of participation, such as the development of scientific skills or increased awareness about biodiversity and conservation, are one of the most widely discussed aspects of CS. Whereas most existing studies investigate perceived or observed learning gains of citizen scientists, this paper takes an alternative perspective by examining learning-related aspects in textual self-representations of CS projects-namely project descriptions posted online. Project descriptions were chosen as objects of analysis both because they can easily be accessed and collected through automated web crawling, and because, as key elements of a CS project's online presence, they play an important role in recruiting volunteers. We have thus conducted a qualitative content analysis of 94 project descriptions with the goal of examining what they tell us about learning dimensions associated with participation in these CS projects. Building on the model of individual learning outcomes developed by Phillips et al. in 2018 [1] as a theoretical framework, our analysis shows that some learning dimensions (such as data collection or using technology), are very prominently discussed in the project descriptions we studied, while others (e.g. experimenting, study design, community action) are clearly underrepresented. In other words, the project descriptions analyzed only partially reflect the educational potential of participation in CS. In the discussion section of this paper, we suggest possible explanations and ways in which this issue could be addressed on the level of both project design and project communication.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85144623854&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - مقالة من مؤنمر
SN - 1824-8039
VL - 418
JO - Proceedings of Science
JF - Proceedings of Science
M1 - 070
T2 - 2022 Engaging Citizen Science Conference, CitSci 2022
Y2 - 25 April 2022 through 26 April 2022
ER -