Measuring Participant Engagement in Short-Duration Citizen Science Events Such as Specimen Collection in National Parks

Citizen science programs in National Parks and other recreational settings have the potential to introduce scientific ideas and concerns to people who might otherwise not engage in science-related activities. This is... [ view full abstract ]

Citizen science programs in National Parks and other recreational settings have the potential to introduce scientific ideas and concerns to people who might otherwise not engage in science-related activities. This is especially true for families, for whom parks provide an opportunity to explore topics where a child's deep interest opens opportunities for rich shared learning. Work at Acadia National Park this summer provided examples of such opportunities: a bioblitz where people of all ages with an interest in beetles helped sort specimens for the park while learning from taxonomists and looking at lots of beetles; dragonfly larvae collection to help monitor mercury; and a workshop that explored the feasibility of using interested amateurs to clean up and look up DNA barcode sequences. Such programs appear to offer important opportunities to activate new interest in science and to build on pre-existing interests for potentially large numbers of people. However, evaluating the effects of such programs through surveys, pre and post-tests, and interviews is difficult due to the short event duration. People are on vacation, they don't want to spend time responding to surveys, and effect sizes are small. This presentation summarizes findings from use of a participant observation protocol that draws on research methods from museum studies to develop a measurement tool that can be used in short-duration citizen science programs. The measurement model asserts that engagement in science learning will be evidenced by a progression from INITIATION behaviors associated with learning a process, to DOING behaviors associated with competent performance, to BREAKTHOUGH behaviors where participants provide evidence of making personal connections to the activity. Rasch model analysis is used to test the fit between observations and the model for the 3 Acadia National Park events identified above.