Let’s Talk about Citizen Science: What Doesn’t Work

Let’s Talk about Citizen Science: What Doesn’t Work

Blog Article

“Citizen Science,” or the idea of using interested laypeople to assist Suction Cups in data collection, has the potential to be a valuable resource to those who study animal cognition.This is largely due to the potential increase in sample size it can provide.However, this technique also has the potential to introduce a significant amount of error to an experiment.As a result, before citizen science can be used as a tool, it is important to determine how it best works; specifically, what methods best motivate people to participate and to provide the most accurate data.This includes sharing situations in which data collection was not successful.

Presented here Interior is a failed attempt at collecting data on mirror self-recognition (MSR) in pet parrots, orchestrated via yahoo groups listservs.The goals in presenting this unsuccessful methodology are to encourage discussion, to prevent others from repeating the same ill-fated methodology, and to encourage others to attempt variations on said methods which might be more successful.