Hannah Greving and colleagues successful in highly ranked biology journal

With a study on citizen science, Hannah Greving and her colleagues from the WTimpact project were successful in the journal BioScience.  The journal ranks 2nd out of 94 in the Web of Science within Biology. Publishing in such a prestigious and widely read journal in the community has a positive impact on the visibility and potential impact of such an important topic: "In the study, we investigated the impact of citizen science attitudes on project outcomes such as pride, motivation, or enthusiasm about wildlife," describes the project leader.

Using cross-lagged panel analyses, the authors found that citizens' attitudes toward citizen science in general have a major impact on outcomes after participating in the project. Sounds trivial? Perhaps, but up to now a different assumption has prevailed in research: "Previous studies assume that the factors we understand as outcomes of the project must already be prerequisites. In other words, those who are already very interested in wildlife at the start of the project, who see the project as a project of the heart, and who are proud to be involved will also have a positive attitude toward citizen science after participation. In a longitudinal study with two measurement points and a total of 383 participants, we have now been able to show that there is in fact a kind of cycle in this cause-effect relationship. Even for those who may not meet these requirements at the beginning of the project, but who have a positive view of citizen science projects in general, the variables studied (pride, ownership, attitude toward and enthusiasm for wildlife, and motivation to participate in the future) increase during participation," says Hannah Greving, explaining the correlation.

For practitioners, this result is highly relevant, because it shows, for example, that good publicity and the broad appeal to potential participants in citizen science projects are the first important prerequisites for project success.