Exploring the participation of young citizen scientists in scientific research: The case of iNaturalist

Abstract

Online citizen science projects have broadened options for accessing science and enabled different forms of participation in scientific research for adult and young volunteers. Yet, little is known regarding participation patterns among youth participants. Quantitative approaches were used to investigate the contribution of 183 young volunteers to citizen science on the iNaturalist platform and the participation behaviour that relates to their contribution. The participants accessed and used iNaturalist as part of one-day field-based events (bioblitzes) facilitated by museums. Compared to the observation behaviour of all iNaturalist users, as documented on the platform, the young volunteers observe fewer plants and birds, and more molluscs, arachnids and insects. The average daily contributions of young volunteers were found to be positively associated with a large proportion of active days on iNaturalist and a systematic contribution behaviour, yet negatively related to a long duration on the platform. This study enhances our understanding of young volunteers’ contributions to citizen science and provides insights for research on participation in online citizen science. Our findings have implications on how museums design the field-based events to encourage follow-up systematic participation and maintain active contribution.

Passive citizen science: The role of social media in wildlife observations

“…More recent citizen science platforms have tried to address the problem of organising campaigns. An example of such a platform is iNaturalist ( https://www.inaturalist.org/ ) a web-based and mobile-supported social network which allows individuals to upload photo observations and identify organisms [ 8 ]. However, the problems of attracting volunteers to participate, the correctness and open access of the uploaded data still remain.…”

The true colours of the Formidable Pygmy Grasshopper (Notocerus formidabilis Günther, 1974) from the Sava region (Madagascar)

“…In the present study, we present records of five more specimens, two from the Paris Natural History Museum collection and three based on photographs of live specimens recently uploaded to the iNaturalist platform by the first author of this paper and identified by the middle and last authors. Platforms such as iNaturalist have significantly contributed to the study of biodiversity in recent years ( Altrudi 2021 ; Aristeidou et al 2021 ), and faunistic studies have never benefited more from such platforms (e.g., Hochmair et al 2020 ; Winterton 2020 ).…”

How Do Young Community and Citizen Science Volunteers Support Scientific Research on Biodiversity? The Case of iNaturalist

“…It is, however, interesting to note that the most observed organisms by young people in a previous study on iNaturalist [12] are plants and insects, while birds and reptiles (which constitute the majority of youth's Research Grade observations in this study) are only a small proportion of their overall contributions. The reasons for this result are not yet entirely understood but can potentially be explained by the difficulty in photographing particular organisms (e.g., flying birds and fast-moving reptiles) without specialised camera equipment [27].…”

“…Furthermore, Herodotou et al [11] identified an asymmetrical participation pattern, similar to that of adults (e.g., [6]), where a few volunteers make the majority of contributions and the majority of them contribute only once or twice. Aristeidou et al [12] studied the contributions of 183 young volunteers on iNaturalist and found that, compared to the observation behaviour of all iNaturalist users, they observed fewer plants and birds, and more molluscs, arachnids and insects. Moreover, an increased number of contributions of young iNaturalist volunteers were found to be associated with systematic participation and a large proportion of active days.…”