Aivelo Tuomas
Science Communication & Society, Institute of Biology University of Leiden Leiden The Netherlands.
Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Program University of Helsinki Helsinki Finland.
Ecol Evol. 2024 Oct 10;14(10):e70428. doi: 10.1002/ece3.70428. eCollection 2024 Oct.
Citizen science is increasingly used to collect ecological data. Specifically, participation of school students in authentic research has been suggested as having a multitude of benefits from serving as data collection to providing science education. Nevertheless, the overall quality and quantity of data is concerning for ecologists who are using data for research. In the Helsinki Urban Rat Project, lower- and upper secondary school students (13-19-year-old) collect data on urban rat occurrence using track plates that record rat footprints. I measured the success of school-aged citizen scientists in collecting and submitting data, and I determined the accuracy of the data they submitted by comparing their results to the results from professional researchers. Furthermore, I used additional questionnaire to relate success and accuracy to student attributes, including age, attitudes about biology as a school subject, interest in the environment and disgust sensitivity toward rats. I learned that, in contrast to results from previous studies, age was not a significant variable but rather available support from a teacher and voluntary participation with rewards were associated with higher data quality. Additionally, attitudes played a part in observer quality: higher liking of biology as a school subject was associated with lower accuracy, whereas a higher interest in the environment was associated with higher accuracy. The young citizen scientists provided broadly accurate data, although false-positive observations were comparatively common. The results suggest that the quality and quantity of citizen-generated data are not straightforwardly dependent on the selected target groups. Citizen science activities should be planned by careful consideration of the context as, for example, the organization of the participation strongly shapes the participatory activities.
公民科学越来越多地被用于收集生态数据。具体而言，有建议指出，让在校学生参与实际研究有诸多益处，从数据收集到提供科学教育。然而，对于将数据用于研究的生态学家来说，数据的整体质量和数量令人担忧。在赫尔辛基城市老鼠项目中，初中和高中学生（13至19岁）使用记录老鼠脚印的追踪板收集城市老鼠出现情况的数据。我衡量了学龄公民科学家在收集和提交数据方面的成功率，并通过将他们的结果与专业研究人员的结果进行比较来确定他们提交数据的准确性。此外，我使用额外的问卷将成功率和准确性与学生属性联系起来，这些属性包括年龄、对生物学作为一门学校课程的态度、对环境的兴趣以及对老鼠的厌恶敏感度。我了解到，与先前研究的结果不同，年龄不是一个显著变量，而是教师提供的支持以及有奖励的自愿参与与更高的数据质量相关。此外，态度在观察者质量方面起到了作用：对生物学作为一门学校课程的喜爱程度越高，准确性越低，而对环境的兴趣越高，准确性越高。尽管假阳性观察相对常见，但年轻的公民科学家提供的数据大致准确。结果表明，公民生成的数据的质量和数量并非直接取决于所选的目标群体。公民科学活动的规划应仔细考虑具体情况，例如，参与的组织方式会强烈影响参与活动。
