Herodotou Christothea, Ismail Nashwa, Aristeidou Maria, Miller Grant, Lahnstein Ana I Benavides, Khanaposhtani Maryam Ghadiri, Robinson Lucy D, Ballard Heidi L
The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, UK.
University of Oxford, UK.
Comput Educ. 2022 Jul;184:104515. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2022.104515.
Community and citizen science in online settings could be seen as a means for young people to engage with and contribute to authentic science. Yet, there is a limited understanding of who takes part in citizen science among young people, what they learn, and through which processes, particularly in online settings. In this exploratory study, we analysed 34 in-depth interviews and log files of young people aged 11-19 years old who took part in citizen science projects, hosted on the Zooniverse platform. Data analysis suggested that participation in online citizen science can bring environmental science learning benefits to young people, with some participants reporting evidence of agency with science, highlighted by taking action to do science in another context. Many participating youth exhibited substantial previous science experiences that helped them to take part and learn from citizen science projects. Considering findings from this study, we present a first working framework of how environmental science learning is enabled or hindered by certain types of participation, as a means to guide the design of online citizen science for young people. We recommend that the future project design, publicity and recruitment in online citizen science activities explicitly target the needs and interests of young people with diverse characteristics and competencies to truly open science to all.
在线环境中的社区和公民科学可被视为年轻人参与真实科学并为之做出贡献的一种方式。然而，对于年轻人中哪些人参与公民科学、他们学到了什么以及通过哪些过程参与，尤其是在在线环境中，人们的了解有限。在这项探索性研究中，我们分析了34名年龄在11至19岁之间参与“众包星系”平台上公民科学项目的年轻人的深度访谈和日志文件。数据分析表明，参与在线公民科学可以给年轻人带来环境科学学习方面的益处，一些参与者报告称有参与科学事务的体验，在其他情境中开展科学实践行动就凸显了这一点。许多参与的青少年此前有丰富的科学经历，这有助于他们参与公民科学项目并从中学习。基于本研究的结果，我们提出了一个初步的工作框架，说明特定类型的参与如何促进或阻碍环境科学学习，以此作为指导面向年轻人的在线公民科学设计的一种方式。我们建议，未来在线公民科学活动的项目设计、宣传和招募应明确针对具有不同特点和能力的年轻人的需求和兴趣，以便真正向所有人开放科学。
