Can inclusion of different levels of participation effort improve volunteer diversity and retainment in a citizen science project?

ABSTRACT

Citizen science is becoming increasingly popular and important due to the benefits it provides scientists, society, and the environment. However, challenges still exist with the recruitment and retention of demographically diverse volunteers for the success and growth of environment-based citizen science programmes. This study used an avian monitoring citizen science project to investigate (1) the effectiveness of different recruitment methods in obtaining different demographics (gender, age, education), (2) how demographics affect the amount of “participation effort” volunteers were willing to contribute, and (3) whether the amount of “participation effort” influences the intent to undertake future volunteer work. Volunteer demographics did not vary amongst different recruitment methods (aim 1), nor did the level of participation effort influence the intent to volunteer in the future (aim 3). However, older volunteers and those having only completed secondary education were more likely to contribute higher levels of effort, in time spent and additional travel (aim 2). Findings suggest that providing multiple roles that differ in level of effort may be beneficial for future citizen science projects by facilitating the needs and restrictions of different demographics.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizen science
• demographics
• environment
• recruitment, retainment

Acknowledgments

We thank all the volunteers for their participation in the project.

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. None of the data are publicly available because they contain information that could compromise the privacy of the volunteers. All volunteers completed their surveys between June 2020 and Sep 2020 (https://docs.google.com/forms). All data and transcripts are on file with the authors.

Ethics

Our research protocols have been approved by the Social and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee (SBREC), project reference number 8659, and informed consent was obtained for all volunteers.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/03721426.2024.2376779

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.