科学方法论对公众科学参与意愿的影响

Influence of scientific methodology on the public’s willingness to participate in citizen science

科学方法论是指导科研活动开展的方法体系,本文探究了科学方法论对公众参与意愿的影响。从理论推演和实验介入两个维度对公众科学项目的研究方法进行了划分,具体为归纳法与演绎法,以及探索法与利用法,形成2X2的研究方法论体系。以1,970个公众科学项目为研究语料,采用文本挖掘方法进行文本分类。以参与人数和融资金额为因变量构建计量模型,估计研究方法论的效用。研究结果表明,公众科学项目采用归纳-利用式研究方法占比最大(33%),而演绎-探索式研究方法占比最小(20%)。但是,从研究方法论的效果上看,演绎式研究以及探索式研究分别比归纳式研究和利用式研究具有显著优势;从2X2象限的比较上看,演绎-探索式研究方法比其他三类方法具有显著优势。进一步地,发起人身份、学科分类、融资目标和社交参与具有一定的调节作用。本文扩展了公众科学研究方法及其绩效评价理论,为公众科学发起人制定有效的研究方案提供了实践参照。

Scientific methodology is an architecture to guide scientific research activities.The methodology was divided in two dimensions:theoretical deduction and experimental intervention.1,970 citizen science projects were adopted as research corpus,and text mining is employed to classify the narratives.The econometric models with the number of participants and the amount of financing as dependent variables are constructed to estimate the effectiveness of the methodology.The results show that induction method accounts for the largest proportion(33%),while deduction method accounts for the smallest proportion(20%).However,from the effect of methodology,deduction and exploration have significant advantages over induction and exploitation,respectively.From the comparison of the 2X2 quadrant,the deduction has significant advantages over the other three types of methods.Further,researcher identities,disciplinary heterogeneity,funding goals and social engagement play a moderating role.That is,non-professional researchers should focus on the feasibility and scientificity of the methods used in the project,while professional researchers may not have to overly focus on the impact of research methods on project participation.The results indicate that the effectiveness of research methods is mainly caused by graduate students and amateur researchers,and there is no significant correlation with the research methods of university professors and industrial researchers.Relatively speaking,university professors and industry researchers have richer background knowledge,more experience and expertise in matching appropriate research methods for research problems,and stronger professional abilities than the graduate students and amateur researchers.As initiators,professional researchers provide a sense of security to the public participating and are not easily affected by the choice of research methods.Therefore,university professors and industry researchers should not focus primarily on tuning research methods.Also,the project launchers should focus on project attributes.Natural science and high financing target projects should focus on the appropriateness and accuracy of scientific research methods.Furthermore,extensive social participation provides a wider space for information dissemination and resources,easily attracting project enthusiasts.We believe that social participation serves as a"catalyst"between research methods and public participation,and project initiators can gain more public support by increasing social participation.According the comparison of research methods,the deductive-exploratory research method has the greatest impact on the willingness of the public to participate under the influence of the social influence of the project initiator.This paper expands citizen science research methods and performance evaluation theory,providing practical reference for citizen science launchers to formulate effective research programs.