This dataset relates to the ESRC Citizen Contribution to Local Public Services project. It is the second of four datasets created for this project. The project sought to identify how social information could influence volunteering levels in different groups, using four different field experiments. This dataset contains information from the second field experiment which examined one form of social information - i.e. feedback about other people's volunteering - on a student and an older population. The other datasets in the project (1,3,4) examine other forms of social information with different groups of people. This dataset contains information relating to volunteering undertaken by students and national trust volunteers participating in an 8 week online social information experiment. Feedback was sent to individuals half way through the study (after 4 weeks) about the volunteering time commitment of others in the study, with the effects of this information on individual volunteering time measured a further 4 weeks later. Individuals were randomly assigned to receive feedback about their own time contribution compared to the median contribution of other participants, the median of the top 10% of participants, the median of the top 20% of participants, or their own time contribution with no comparison. The study was conducted in 3 separate iterations with all iterations combined within this single dataset. Variables include occupation, hours of paid work, course, year and level of study (where applicable), university attended (where applicable), gender, hours volunteered, highest qualification, and years in institution.Citizen contributions to public services are regarded as increasingly important by researchers and policy-makers. These include volunteering to make communities better places. A core idea in recent thinking in behavioural economics and the study of collective action is that the way information is presented to citizens matters to their willingness to donate their time. This can include who makes the request, what information there is about what other people do, and what feedback people get about their volunteering and the activities of others. The research examined whether recommendations from prominent people, such as those in the community sector and politicians, could help promote civic action. The research also examined the effect of providing feedback about other people's time contributions. The researchers sought to identify whether varying the form of feedback to citizens matters, and used randomized controlled trials to investigate their effects on citizens' contributions to volunteering.
Online registration survey with student volunteers from several UK universities (including Exeter, Salford, UCL, Plymouth, Southampton, Bristol, Imperial, Oxford, Essex, Warwick, Cambridge) and National Trust volunteers from various UK locations. Sample total: 400 people. Sampling was achieved with the assistance of student volunteering units in participating universities, Student Hubs (the student volunteering organisation) and National Trust. Outcome data were collected via the website following an email invitation for participants to login and record their volunteering data.
