Abstract
Citizen science has become a crucial approach to scientific research and a means of monitoring the environment, removing invasive species, and educating the public on conservation and the environment. However, maintaining a citizen science community is a challenge for moderators and core members. Thus, understanding the motivations for being involved in such communities is imperative for ensuring the ongoing contributions of citizen scientists. Taiwan Roadkill Observation Network (TaiRON) is the most popular citizen science project in Taiwan, with approximately 19,000 members and at least 5,500 individuals who have uploaded data to TaiRON database. In this study, we used quantitative (n = 538) and qualitative (n = 12) approaches to explore participants’ motivations for joining TaiRON. The results revealed that the primary motivation of participants was learning, followed by acquiring a sense of self-achievement. This indicates that participants had intrinsic motivations for joining TaiRON. The qualitative results indicated the same trend of initial motivation. The motivation to continue participation among participants in TaiRON community also reflected their desire to learn and acquire a sense of self-achievement. These results indicate that participants in TaiRON are given the opportunity to continuously learn about conservation, thus satisfying their need for a sense of self-fulfillment. Moreover, the findings of this study can be applied for the management of citizen science projects and for promoting participants’ ongoing contributions to biological conservation.
Keywords: Citizen science, Motivation, Taiwan Roadkill Observation Network, Management