What Is Our Impact?

Abstract

Abstract This chapter focuses on citizen science program evaluation in informal settings. It first considers the historic rationale for evidence-based educational research before presenting a working matrix, modified from an evaluation framework developed in 2008 under the auspices of the National Science Foundation (NSF) for assessing the educational impacts of citizen science and other public participation in scientific research projects. It explains the theoretical basis of the matrix and illustrates its use with an example from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's NestWatch program. The chapter concludes with recommendations for developing systematic evaluations of citizen science and other forms of public participation in scientific research. These ideas are also intended to help guide overall thinking about evaluation design and instruments.