Assessing science inquiry skills of citizen science volunteers: a snapshot of the field

ABSTRACT

Skill-based outcomes play a prominent role in citizen science experiences as they are situated directly between the dual, intertwining goals of advancing science learning and science research. Regular and transparent assessment of volunteers’ science inquiry skills can support these goals, but we lack a comprehensive understanding of how these skills are assessed. To address this gap, we collected data from citizen science project leaders through questionnaires, interviews and a systematic literature review. Findings demonstrated that most projects targeted a narrow range of skills that centered on data collection. About half of questionnaire and interview respondents stated that they assess science inquiry skills, but many relied on informal or indirect methods such as observations and conversations lacking protocols. Less than a third of these respondents and only 13% of reviewed articles administered formal assessments of skills, such as tests and performance measures based on volunteers’ submitted data. Challenges associated with skill assessment included lack of time, staff, expertise, funding and supporting resources. Overall, our study provides clear evidence of the limited breadth and assessment of skills targeted within citizen science, and points to the need for resources that promote and expand the use of assessment addressing science inquiry skills.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment
• citizen science
• data validation
• embedded assessment
• science inquiry skills

Acknowledgements

We thank questionnaire and interview respondents for their participation, as well as three reviewers for their helpful guidance. Every author met all the following criteria: (1) made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; (2) contributed to the drafting the work, or revising it critically for important intellectual content; (3) provided final approval of the version to be published; (4) agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved; and (5) agreed to be named on the author list, and approved of the full author list.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

Cathlyn Davis Stylinski http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0968-4336

Karen Peterman http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4388-9412

Tina Phillips http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5010-6052

Jenna Linhart http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5234-7880

Rachel Becker-Klein http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3820-4549

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under [grant number DRL–1422099].