Citizen scientists: Self-reported attitudes, behaviors, and knowledge before and after participation

Background/Question/Methods

Many citizen science programs have clearly demonstrated how science can benefit from expanded data collection. What is less well documented, however, is potential for increasing scientific awareness or changing attitudes and behaviors, and the means by which citizen science programs can accomplish these goals. Furthermore, we wanted to better document the benefits to the citizen scientists themselves. Our goal was to document changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors for participants in the Chicago Area Pollinator Study (CAPS), a pilot citizen science project to study relationships between bees and land use.

Citizen scientists collected bees in their yards once per month from July-October 2009. All participants were asked to complete a survey before the first collection (47 respondents) and after the final collection (30 respondents). Responses for 25 respondents were matched in the "before" and "after" surveys. Both surveys included questions about participant demographics, attitudes towards bees and science, gardening habits, and urban wildlife facts. The "after" survey included additional questions evaluating the project. 

Results/Conclusions

Few survey responses differed significantly before and after participating in CAPS. Responses to attitude and behavior questions changed very little. Participants learned that not all bees live in colonies and were able to name significantly more types of bees after participation, but the median and mean bee types reported were still low (3 and 2.64).

We believe the small gains in knowledge and lack of change in attitudes and behaviors is because we did not target our communications with the participants to address these areas. In developing the survey, we brainstormed ways in which participants might change, but did not create a clear plan to encourage those changes. We see two main explanations for the poor performance in naming different bee species: 1) we provided participants with links to bee identification guides but did not create one specifically for the project, and 2) we did not process, identify, and report results to participants in a timely manner.

Based on our experience, if you want people to change attitudes or behaviors, it is important to plan from the beginning how those changes can be fostered in participants. Designing and planning the education component is as important as the data collection protocol.