主题：Birding and citizen science

Children and wildlife

As most initiation processes happen during childhood and early adolescence, a closer look at the relationship between children and wildlife is necessary. Animals rank high in the view of Norwegian children and adolescents and animal-related activities like bird feeding, or watching hare, fox, and moose are common (Bjerke et al., 2001). Also, in secondary school teaching living animals during lessons are highly appreciated in Germany (Hummel and Randler, 2012). From a developmental viewpoint, German children are interested in animals, and their knowledge and interest increase from primary school (grade 1–4) to about grade 7, and afterwards knowledge decreases again (Randler, 2008; Randler and Wieland, 2010).

 This suggests that the age group of 9–12 years maybe an ideal time frame to catch interest into birds. Some intervention studies have been carried out to address this aspect: During a ten-week program, developed for feeder watching in the United States, in the group of seven- to nine-year old children, a gain in bird knowledge was found (Beck et al., 2001), and the increased knowledge was positively associated with parental education (Beck et al., 2001). Similarly, environmental attitudes and attitudes towards living organism could be improved by a 11-day teaching program in nature in 7th graders in Turkey (Genc et al., 2018). White et al. (2018) increased awareness for biodiversity and an increase in bird identification knowledge and attitudes by a special program exposing 7–10-year old UK children to their urban wildlife surroundings.

 Thus, programs to increase biodiversity awareness and knowledge usually start at this age. The study presented here is used to assess the initiation age and the initiation reasons to, in combination with the above-mentioned studies, draw conclusions on the ideal time frame and venue to start birding initiation.

儿童和野生动物

由于大多数成长过程发生在童年和青春期早期，因此有必要更仔细地观察儿童和野生动物之间的关系。动物在挪威儿童和青少年的心目中地位很高，与动物相关的活动，如喂鸟、观察野兔、狐狸和驼鹿都很常见(Bjerke等人，2001年)。

此外，在德国，中学课堂上教授活体动物受到高度赞赏(胡梅尔和兰德勒，2012)。从发展的角度来看，德国儿童对动物感兴趣，他们的知识和兴趣从小学(1-4年级)增加到大约7年级，之后知识再次减少(Randler，2008；兰德勒和维兰德，2010年)。

这表明9-12岁的年龄组可能是引起对鸟类兴趣的理想时间范围。已经进行了一些干预研究来解决这方面的问题:在美国为饲养者观察开发的为期10周的计划中，在7-9岁的儿童组中发现了鸟类知识的增加(Beck等人，2001)，并且增加的知识与父母的教育正相关(Beck等人，2001)。

同样，在《自然》杂志上对土耳其七年级学生进行为期11天的教学计划，可以改善环境态度和对生命体的态度(根茨等人，2018)。White等人(2018年)通过一个让7-10岁的英国儿童接触城市野生动物环境的特别项目，提高了对生物多样性的认识，增加了鸟类识别知识和态度。因此，增加生物多样性意识和知识的项目通常从这个年龄开始。这里介绍的研究用于评估开始年龄和开始原因，结合上述研究，得出开始观鸟开始的理想时间范围和地点的结论。

Initiation into leisure

Exploration of how the leisure socialization process can be investigated requires answers to basic questions of when and with whom leisure is learned (Kelly, 1974). Studies concerning these questions revealed that activities started both, already during childhood, as well as in adult years (Kelly, 1974). Therefore, leisure socialization is a life-long process, but family influence was found in 63% of the studied persons (Kelly, 1974, 1979). However, this may be dependent on the type of leisure activity. Further, life-course events have been often seen as having a negative influence on recreation specialization, i.e., highly skilled and qualified people reduced their activities because of life-course events, such as familial obligations (Kuentzel and Heberlein, 2008). In their research, Kuentzel and Heberlein (2008) defined different milestones of the family, including marriage, divorce, childbearing, and the empty nest. In a similar way, job-related changes were significant events, such as the first contract, a higher salary or retirement. Personality psychologist often invoke that a specific job or being recruited into the work force was a more important life-course event than familial events (Bleidorn et al., 2013). Thus, life-course events in general may have an influence in leisure and birding initiation.

Turning to social factors, or the more “infiltrative” process of socialization, support by family and peers may help a person to develop his or her birdwatching skills, because these persons may act as role model or mentor. In a parent-child study, parents regarded themselves as main transmitters of species knowledge to their 5–11 year old children (Remmele and Lindemann-Mathies, 2018), and a correlation between parents and children existed in knowledge scores about animals and plants (Remmele and Lindemann-Mathies, 2018). Comparable to other life-course changes, a trigger event (or epiphany) might be the releasing moment or factor to engage a person in birding, comparable to other trigger events, like becoming a vegetarian (Ploll et al., 2020). Thus, there might be a specific moment or experience that turns a person into a birder. Alternatively, as interest in birding can be a slow infiltration process or by socialization, it might occur also without a specific trigger event, e.g., by persistent influence of parents.

闲 如何调查休闲社会化过程的探索需要回答休闲是何时和与谁学习的基本问题(Kelly，1974)。关于这些问题的研究表明，活动不仅在儿童时期就开始了，而且在成年时期也开始了(Kelly，1974)。因此，休闲社会化是一个终生的过程，但在63%的被调查者中发现了家庭的影响(Kelly，1974，1979)。然而，这可能取决于休闲活动的类型。此外，生活事件往往被视为对娱乐专业化有负面影响，即高技能和高素质的人因为家庭义务等生活事件而减少了他们的活动(Kuentzel和Heberlein，2008年)。

在他们的研究中，Kuentzel和Heberlein (2008)定义了家庭的不同里程碑，包括结婚、离婚、生育和空巢。同样，与工作相关的变化也是重大事件，比如第一份合同、更高的薪水或退休。人格心理学家通常认为，特定的工作或被招聘到劳动力队伍中是比家庭事件更重要的人生事件(Bleidorn et al .，2013)。因此，一般来说，生命历程事件可能会对休闲和观鸟启蒙产生影响。

谈到社会因素，或更“渗透”的社会化过程，来自家庭和同龄人的支持可以帮助一个人发展他或她的观鸟技能，因为这些人可以作为榜样或导师。在一项亲子研究中，父母认为自己是5-11岁儿童物种知识的主要传递者(Remmele和Lindemann-Mathies，2018年)，父母和儿童之间的相关性存在于关于动物和植物的知识得分中(Remmele和Lindemann-Mathies，2018年)。与其他生命历程变化类似，触发事件(或顿悟)可能是促使一个人参与观鸟的释放时刻或因素，与其他触发事件类似，如成为素食者(Ploll等人，2020)。

因此，可能会有一个特定的时刻或经历把一个人变成一个观鸟者。或者，由于对观鸟的兴趣可能是一个缓慢的渗透过程或通过社会化，它也可能在没有特定触发事件的情况下发生，例如，通过父母的持续影响。

Birding initiation

Few studies examined initiation to birding (Canada: McFarlane 1996; USA: Moore et al., 2008). Most birders (60%) started birding during their adult years (McFarlane, 1996). However, birders having started in childhood more often progressed into specialized birders (McFarlane, 1996), emphasizing the importance of early childhood initiation. McFarlane (1996) further classified factors into three groups: one was related to the family, another was concerned with knowledge/opportunity, and the third was labeled “leisure social world”, including activities like field trips, companionship with others or taking bird-related courses. Initial involvement in birding was also studied by Moore et al. (2008), in this case, with a focus on gender differences. These authors compared means between men and women. These pioneering studies from McFarlane (1996) and Moore et al. (2008), however, used items with a Likert-type response format. Jones et al. (2017), also studying US Americans, used a qualitative approach (interviews) and reported that life-long science interest started during childhood and was influenced by events, resources, and family members. Compared to the quantitative, scale-based approaches of McFarlane (1996) and Moore et al. (2008), Jones et al. (2017) relied on a lower sample size.

观鸟初始

很少有研究调查观鸟的开始(加拿大:麦克法拉尼1996；美国:摩尔等人，2008年)。大多数观鸟者(60%)在成年后开始观鸟(麦克法拉尼，1996)。然而，从童年开始的观鸟者更容易发展成专业的观鸟者(麦克法拉尼，1996)，强调了儿童早期启蒙的重要性。麦克法拉尼(1996)进一步将因素分为三组:一组与家庭有关，另一组与知识/机会有关，第三组被称为“休闲社交世界”，包括实地考察、与他人交往或参加鸟类相关课程等活动。Moore等人(2008)也研究了最初参与观鸟的情况，在这种情况下，重点是性别差异。这些作者比较了男性和女性的平均收入。

然而，麦克法拉尼(1996年)和摩尔等人(2008年)的这些开创性研究使用了李克特式反应格式的项目。

Jones等人(2017年)也研究了美国人，他们使用了定性方法(采访)，并报告说，终身科学兴趣始于童年，并受到事件、资源和家庭成员的影响。与麦克法拉尼(1996年)和摩尔等人(2008年)基于规模的定量方法相比，琼斯等人(2017年)依赖于较低的样本量。

The current study

This current study differs in some places from previous work. First, we followed a mixed-methods approach to portray birding initiation and to group these trigger events into different groups or categories. By using a bottom-up open-ended question, we received more diverse answers in comparison with a given number of questionnaire items that leave no space for personal expressions (comparable to the qualitative approach by Jones et al., 2017). By using qualitative content analysis, the participants can freely choose their own answers to the question. This turns out a much broader spectrum of possible initiation processes. Moreover, when looking at social aspects of the initiation process, we assess which gender influenced a given person, and finally, the reasons for initiation might differ between decades. This can be assessed because of the high sample size, that is much higher than any previous study in birding initiation.

Our study addresses the following questions:

1. 1.

   What are the reasons for birding initiation?

2. 2.

   Do reasons differ between men and women?

3. 3.

   Are there differences in “social” initiation by genders?

4. 4.

   Do reasons for birding initiation differ concerning decades?

5. 当前的研究 这项当前的研究在某些地方不同于以前的工作。首先，我们采用了一种混合方法来描述观鸟开始，并将这些触发事件分成不同的组或类别。通过使用自下而上的开放式问题，与给定数量的问卷项目相比，我们收到了更多样化的答案，这些问卷项目没有给个人表达留下空间(与Jones等人，2017年的定性方法相当)。通过使用定性内容分析，参与者可以自由选择自己对问题的答案。这证明了更广泛的可能引发过程。此外，当着眼于启蒙过程的社会方面时，我们评估哪种性别影响了一个特定的人，最后，启蒙的原因可能在几十年间有所不同。这是可以评估的，因为样本量很大，远远高于任何以前的观鸟初始研究。 我们的研究解决了以下问题: 1. 观鸟入门的原因是什么？ 2. 男人和女人的理由不同吗？ 3. 性别对“社交”的发起有差异吗？ 4. 开始观鸟的原因是否因年代不同而不同？