The Dual Nature of Trust in Participatory Sciences: An Investigation into Data Quality and Household Privacy Preferences

There is a duality of trust in participatory science (citizen science) projects in which the data produced by volunteers must be trusted by the scientific community and participants must trust the scientists who lead projects. Facilitator organizations are third-party organizations that engage their...

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Main Authors: Danielle Lin Hunter, Valerie Johnson, Caren Cooper
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Ubiquity Press 2024-11-01
Series:Citizen Science: Theory and Practice
Subjects:
Online Access:https://account.theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org/index.php/up-j-cstp/article/view/697
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author Danielle Lin Hunter
Valerie Johnson
Caren Cooper
author_facet Danielle Lin Hunter
Valerie Johnson
Caren Cooper
author_sort Danielle Lin Hunter
collection DOAJ
description There is a duality of trust in participatory science (citizen science) projects in which the data produced by volunteers must be trusted by the scientific community and participants must trust the scientists who lead projects. Facilitator organizations are third-party organizations that engage their members in participatory science to enrich their members’ experience at their organization. In Crowd the Tap, we engaged participants through facilitator organizations including high schools, faith communities, universities, and a corporate volunteer program. We used Kruskal Wallis tests and chi-square tests with Bonferroni post hoc tests to assess how data quality and privacy preferences differed across facilitator groups and amongst those who participated in the project independently (unfacilitated). Faith communities provided higher data quality while students provided lower data quality. Data quality in education settings differed based on the level of investment of the project in terms of both time and money as well as student age. We also found that demographic and household characteristics seemed more important in predicting privacy preferences than facilitation. Our results suggest that project leaders can support diverse participation by extending protection of participant privacy and investing in needed resources to support facilitators. They also suggest that education-oriented facilitators may need to prioritize data quality to ensure authentic learning opportunities. Ultimately our results reveal several tradeoffs that project leaders can weigh when deciding to work with facilitators.
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spelling doaj-art-64671b89ccbc4862bc827fcf4155267e2025-08-20T01:58:38ZengUbiquity PressCitizen Science: Theory and Practice2057-49912024-11-0191313110.5334/cstp.697679The Dual Nature of Trust in Participatory Sciences: An Investigation into Data Quality and Household Privacy PreferencesDanielle Lin Hunter0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5328-595XValerie Johnson1https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8843-0655Caren Cooper2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6263-8892North Carolina State UniversityShaw UniversityNorth Carolina State UniversityThere is a duality of trust in participatory science (citizen science) projects in which the data produced by volunteers must be trusted by the scientific community and participants must trust the scientists who lead projects. Facilitator organizations are third-party organizations that engage their members in participatory science to enrich their members’ experience at their organization. In Crowd the Tap, we engaged participants through facilitator organizations including high schools, faith communities, universities, and a corporate volunteer program. We used Kruskal Wallis tests and chi-square tests with Bonferroni post hoc tests to assess how data quality and privacy preferences differed across facilitator groups and amongst those who participated in the project independently (unfacilitated). Faith communities provided higher data quality while students provided lower data quality. Data quality in education settings differed based on the level of investment of the project in terms of both time and money as well as student age. We also found that demographic and household characteristics seemed more important in predicting privacy preferences than facilitation. Our results suggest that project leaders can support diverse participation by extending protection of participant privacy and investing in needed resources to support facilitators. They also suggest that education-oriented facilitators may need to prioritize data quality to ensure authentic learning opportunities. Ultimately our results reveal several tradeoffs that project leaders can weigh when deciding to work with facilitators.https://account.theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org/index.php/up-j-cstp/article/view/697trust in datatrust in sciencedata qualityfacilitator organizationsdrinking water
spellingShingle Danielle Lin Hunter
Valerie Johnson
Caren Cooper
The Dual Nature of Trust in Participatory Sciences: An Investigation into Data Quality and Household Privacy Preferences
Citizen Science: Theory and Practice
trust in data
trust in science
data quality
facilitator organizations
drinking water
title The Dual Nature of Trust in Participatory Sciences: An Investigation into Data Quality and Household Privacy Preferences
title_full The Dual Nature of Trust in Participatory Sciences: An Investigation into Data Quality and Household Privacy Preferences
title_fullStr The Dual Nature of Trust in Participatory Sciences: An Investigation into Data Quality and Household Privacy Preferences
title_full_unstemmed The Dual Nature of Trust in Participatory Sciences: An Investigation into Data Quality and Household Privacy Preferences
title_short The Dual Nature of Trust in Participatory Sciences: An Investigation into Data Quality and Household Privacy Preferences
title_sort dual nature of trust in participatory sciences an investigation into data quality and household privacy preferences
topic trust in data
trust in science
data quality
facilitator organizations
drinking water
url https://account.theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org/index.php/up-j-cstp/article/view/697
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