Collaborative science across the globe: The influence of culture and motivation on volunteers in the

United States, India, and Costa Rica

Dana Rotman, Ph.D. defense, March 11, 2013

Collaborative scientific projects

Ecology

Other fields

Collaborative scientific projects

Ecology

Other fields

Outline

• Research questions

• Background literature

• Theoretical background

• Methods

• Findings

• Limitations and future work

Research questions

How can we motivate volunteers to continuously collaborate with scientists on large-scale biodiversity projects in different cultures?

What brings volunteers to contribute to ecology-related collaborative scientific projects? 1

Do volunteers’ motivations change over time?2

Are the motivating factors similar in different cultures? 3

Background literature

• Science as a collaborative endeavor (Latour & Woolgar, 1972; Trane, 1972)

• Inter-,multi-, trans-, cross- disciplinary science (Sonnenwald, 2007)

• Collaboratives or cyberinfrastructure (Olson & Olson, 2000; Finholt, 2002; Bos et al. 2007)

• Collaborations involving volunteers: • Contributory projects• collaborative projects• co-created projects (Bonney et al., 2009; Wiggins & Crowston, 2011)

• Volunteers’ motivation (Raddick et al., 2010; Nov et al. 2011; Rotman et al. 2012)

Theoretical framework

Culture Motivation

Collaboration

Theoretical framework

Culture

National, Scientific,

Collaborative

“The collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another” (Hofstede, 1980, p. 9)

PDI IDV MAS UAI LTO0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

US

India

Costa Rica

Individualism/collectivism

Femininity/masculinity

Power distance distance

Uncertainty avoidance

Long vs. shortterm planning

Theoretical framework

MotivationSocial-identity based motivations (Batson, Ahmad, Tsang, 2002)

Increasing one’s own welfare

Increasing the overall welfare

of the group

Increasing the welfare of another

individual within the group

Upholding one or more

principles

Egoism Altruism Collectivism Principlism

The compilation of forces that direct human behavior toward attaining specific goals.

Methods

Size and population

Number of collaborative projects

Estimated number of volunteers

Surveys Interviews

United States

3rd largest in size, 3rd in population

Over 400 >100,000 142 13

India7th largest in size, 2nd in population

2 national, several dozen local

< 10,000 156 22

Costa Rica127th largest in size, 121st in population

Several hundred ~ 50,000 - 9

• 3 case studies• Quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews

Findings

Motivation Culture

Collaboration

The United States

Altruism Collectivism Principalism Egoism0

1

2

3

4

5

ScientistsVolunteers

Motivational Factors

Moti

vatio

nal l

evel

- Li

kert

sca

le

n = 142

The United StatesPersonal interest

“I think personal interest comes first. Personal interest and personal gain”

Personal benefits

Social benefits

Ease of participation

“You wanted to go down there with a magnet attached to your brain and try to absorb everything scientists had to say”

Learning process

Acknowledgement “It was nice to get something back, because people aren’t going to keep on doing that unless there’s something coming back”

Community- related motivations

“It’s the combination of being an effective citizen scientist and seeing the community thrive… people really care about their natural resources here”

Initi

al

Conti

nued

Findings – India

Principalism Altruism Collectivism Egoism0

1

2

3

4

5

scientist

student

enthusiast

N = 156

IndiaPersonal benefit

“I want to help this organization; number two it will benefit me to increase my knowledge and number three for my experience for my future prospects or any other”Personal value

Tangible rewards “They are not rich, they can do anything for you just for 50 Rupees, they will gather every information for just 50 Rupees”

Learning process

“If people contributing data have some control over how [the data] is used, I think if that’s made clear to people that might encourage people to really contribute a little more”Ease of

participation

Community-related motivations

“Environmental education I see it like kind of drugs, you know, I had [to] inject [sic] into the kids, catch them young… They will never be able to go away from this and they will never be able to do against nature”

Initi

al

Conti

nued

Costa Rica

Culture’s role

“If you visit Costa Rica and you talk to a cop, driver, or maybe a bus driver or people that work in a restaurant, they will make you a conversation about the topics of environment and their importance, there’s a true moral thing”

Education

Individual and Community-related motivations

“There is a sense of social responsibility or environmental responsibility”

Continuous collaboration “A volunteer can participate at any level of research in my

opinion. From a person who has no experience and needs to be trained to participate, to someone who has the same academic qualifications as the scientists and who just isn’t being paid”

Initi

al

Conti

nued

Findings

Motivation Culture

Collaboration

The United States

Locale

“I think every small town should have a citizen nature network where they have specific speakers come in who work with specific animals they may never in their lives come into contact with… they can get in touch with the natural world immediately around them”

Scientists and volunteers

“I think that the most challenging thing is to say to scientists that you want to do something, without some of the fear they will consider you to be some annoying amateur”

India

Social stratification and hierarchy

“I am sure you will notice that somewhat hierarchy of society so people won’t often express their feelings”

Trust“Why is he showing his interest so much? He is eager for his fellowship money, than I have to think 100 times, but if he is eager for the knowledge he wants to gather, than most welcome…”

Language “There are people who cannot understand English, especially when it comes by itself… people will go more and learn if we use common language”

Bureaucracy

“One thing in India, unless you are a part of the government or a government institute, it’s very difficult to get access to all the existing data as well as to carry on your part”

Costa Rica

Government support

“A journalist was asking people if they would be supportive of a tax to protect the country’s rain forests. And the people responded that ‘yes, they would be OK with that’ … I often comment to my colleagues, ‘We must be crazy in Costa Rica! Accepting a tax!”

Public support

Findings

Motivation Culture

Collaboration

The collaboration cycle – The United States

Potential attrition point

Potential attrition point

Personal interest

Active collaboration

Positive within-project

relationship

Continuous collaboration

Personal interest, self efficacy

Trust, acknowledgement,

mentorship

Education and outreach, policy and

activism

Positive within-project and

external relationships

Self-directed motivations

Initiating participation

culture

culture

culture

cultu

re

The collaboration cycle – India

Potential attrition point

Potential attrition point

Potential attrition point

Personal interest

Self-directed

motivations

Active collaboration

Self-directed motivation,

positive within-project

relationship

Continuous collaboration

Personal interest, self promotion

self-promotion, acknowledgement,

mentorship

Education and outreach, self-promotion,

acknowledgement

Self-directed motivation Positive within-project and

external relationships

Initiating participation

culture

culture

cultu

reculture

The collaboration cycle – Costa Rica

Potential attrition point

Potential attrition point

Personal interest

Collective motivations,self-directed motivations

Active collaboration

positive within-project

relationship

Continuous collaboration

Social responsibility, self-efficacy, self-promotion,

personal interest

Common goals, trust, acknowledgment

Education and outreach, policy and activism,

acknowledgement

Positive within-project and

external relationships

Initiating participation

cultu

reculture

culture

culture

The collaboration cycle - differences

Potential attrition point

Potential attrition point

Personal interest

Self vs. collective

motivations

Active collaboration

Self directed motivations vs. within-project

relationship

Continuous collaboration

Self directed motivations vs. within project and external relationships

Initiating participation

cultu

reculture

culture

culture

Potential attrition

point (only India)

Key contributions

What brings volunteers to contribute to ecology-related collaborative scientific projects?• Self directed motivations (US, India)• Collective motivations (Costa Rica)

1

Do volunteers’ motivations change over time?• A combination of self directed motivations, internal and external relationships

2

Are the motivating factors similar in different cultures?• Culture has a nuanced but strong effect on motivation and participation in collaborative scientific project

3

Limitations and future work

• No generalizability

• Costa Rica survey

• Personal cultural perspective Limitations

• Deepening the Costa Rica study

• Extending the study to other countries

• Determining the role of technology

• Suggesting design guidelines

Future work

Thank you!

Committee members Dr. Jenny Preece, chair Dr. Brian Butler Dr. Kari Kraus Dr. Katie Shilton Dr. David Jacobs

NSF Biotracker SoCS grant(10-0352) Extreme ethnography EAGER grant (11019993 )

Special thanksThe Biotracker team, EOLMaggie Rodriguez, Jen Hammock, Carol Boston, Sabah Rubina, Chitra Ravi