An investigation of player motivations in Eyewire, a gamified citizen science project

- A study to investigate player participation in the citizen science game, Eyewire.
- A platform survey was conducted to elicit why and how they engage with Eyewire.
- Four themes identified as core intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of participation.
- Findings used to form a framework for designing volunteer citizen science projects.

Sustained engagement of participants is essential for the success of a citizen science project. However, the motivations of why people engage with such activities can be idiosyncratic, varied, and evolving. In this article we examine player participation in Eyewire, a citizen science game. We undertake an investigation of why Eyewire players take part in the game based on responses from a large-scale survey. Our analysis identifies 4 groups of features which impact participation and long-term engagement. We draw on theories of motivation and consider the 4 categories with respect to the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of engagement. We assimilate our findings into a framework of volunteer participation for gamified citizen science, which draws on existing design frameworks, in order to support the design of future crowdsourced science projects.