Anthropomorphism and motivating participation in citizen science projects

Citizen science depends on people not only joining projects, but remaining engaged over time. As more projects rely on sensors, digital platforms, and automated instruments, Rosen and her colleagues ask whether the design of those technologies can influence people’s motivation to participate.

Rather than looking only at the technology itself, the team drew from human-robot interaction research to ask whether people’s relationship with scientific instruments might matter.

The researchers focused on anthropomorphism — assigning human characteristics to non-human objects.

In the Citizen-Enabled Aerosol Measurements for Satellites project, participants used low-cost air-quality samplers to measure regional air quality. The team encouraged participants to relate to the instruments as collaborators, not just tools.

The researchers evaluated this approach during an eight-week study involving 30 students participating in NASA’s Student Airborne Research Program.

The study found partial experimental support that anthropomorphism may strengthen several motivations associated with citizen science participation.

Citizen science projects often focus on improving the scientific capabilities of their technologies. This study suggests that communication and interaction design also deserve attention.

As citizen science increasingly incorporates sensors, automated technologies, artificial intelligence, and digital platforms, the study points toward a practical question: how can civic science technologies be designed to feel approachable, collaborative, and worth returning to?

The findings should be interpreted with caution. The study involved 30 participants in a single citizen science project over eight weeks. While the researchers identified several statistically significant relationships, they describe the evidence as partial.

Future studies with larger and more diverse participant populations will be needed to determine whether these findings generalize across other citizen science settings, technologies, and communities.