The Effect of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Factors on Volunteer Participation for Distributed Computing Project Folding@home

Justin KongFollow

School Name

Spring Valley High School

Grade Level

11th Grade

Presentation Topic

Behavioral Science

Presentation Type

Non-Mentored

Abstract

Folding@Home (F@H) is a distributed computing project that volunteers run to process simulation-based data packets of viral proteins of diseases such as SARS-CoV-2 and Alzheimer’s. The initiative has gained significant traction over the course of the pandemic due to its contribution in treatment method research and drug testing. However, persisting issues of retention rate and initial participant attraction have not been addressed. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the general motivational factors for non-volunteer young adult participation in F@H. It was hypothesized that participants would hold greater extrinsically-motivated values with the distribution of the likert scale scores in relation to time spent running the software being statistically significant. A survey-questionnaire was sent to a random sampling of Spring Valley High School students and MechanicalTurk users (18 to 21). Participants were given the choice to run the software for any amount of time, and were asked to respond to intrinsic and extrinsic motivational assessment likert questions (Krebs, 2010). A two sample chi-square test of analysis was performed on the data sets for intrinsic motivation (X2(16, N = 160) = 32.509, p < 0.05) and extrinsic motivation (X2(16, N = 185) = 56.091, p < 0.001). The results indicated that the average likert scale scores for intrinsic motivation were greater than that of extrinsic motivation, with the distribution of scores being statistically significant. Furthermore, the study showed that a significant demographic of technology consumers held greater personal values for a scientifically-contributive program, which should be researched more extensively in the future.

Location

B&E 235

Start Date

4-2-2022 9:00 AM

Presentation Format

Oral and Written

Group Project

No

COinS
 
Apr 2nd, 9:00 AM

The Effect of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Factors on Volunteer Participation for Distributed Computing Project Folding@home

B&E 235

Folding@Home (F@H) is a distributed computing project that volunteers run to process simulation-based data packets of viral proteins of diseases such as SARS-CoV-2 and Alzheimer’s. The initiative has gained significant traction over the course of the pandemic due to its contribution in treatment method research and drug testing. However, persisting issues of retention rate and initial participant attraction have not been addressed. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the general motivational factors for non-volunteer young adult participation in F@H. It was hypothesized that participants would hold greater extrinsically-motivated values with the distribution of the likert scale scores in relation to time spent running the software being statistically significant. A survey-questionnaire was sent to a random sampling of Spring Valley High School students and MechanicalTurk users (18 to 21). Participants were given the choice to run the software for any amount of time, and were asked to respond to intrinsic and extrinsic motivational assessment likert questions (Krebs, 2010). A two sample chi-square test of analysis was performed on the data sets for intrinsic motivation (X2(16, N = 160) = 32.509, p < 0.05) and extrinsic motivation (X2(16, N = 185) = 56.091, p < 0.001). The results indicated that the average likert scale scores for intrinsic motivation were greater than that of extrinsic motivation, with the distribution of scores being statistically significant. Furthermore, the study showed that a significant demographic of technology consumers held greater personal values for a scientifically-contributive program, which should be researched more extensively in the future.