Development and Validation of Extrinsic Motivation Scale for Crowdsourcing Micro-task Platforms Babak Naderi, Ina Wechsung, Tim Polzehl, Sebastian Möller Quality and Usability Lab Technical University of Berlin Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7 10587 Berlin, Germany {babak.naderi, Ina.Wechsung, Tim.Polzehl, Sebastian.Moeller}@telekom.de ABSTRACT In this paper, we introduce a scale for measuring the extrinsic motivation of crowd workers. The new questionnaire is strongly based on the Work Extrinsic Intrinsic Motivation Scale (WEIMS) [17] and theoretically follows the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) of motivation. The questionnaire has been applied and validated in a crowdsourcing micro-task platform. This instrument can be used for studying the dynamics of extrinsic motivation by taking into account individual differences and provide meaningful insights which will help to design a proper incentives framework for each crowd worker that eventually leads to a better performance, an increased well-being, and higher overall quality. Categories and Subject Descriptors  Information systems~Crowdsourcing  Information systems~Incentive schemes  Human-centered computing~User models  Human-centered computing~User studies General Terms Measurement, Experimentation, Human Factors, Verification. Keywords Crowdsourcing; Motivation; SDT; CFA. 1. INTRODUCTION Crowdsourcing micro-task platforms allow generating large and specific data on demand for researchers and developers in many ways. They offer a fast, flexible, and low cost approach for solving problems that are still extremely complex for computer algorithms, e.g. image tagging or transcribing, by using human intellectual power [13]. Nowadays, crowdsourcing micro-task platforms are offering mobile native applications as well [13]. With these apps it is not only possible to collect fast, diverse and inexpensive data but also to capture field data with realistic conditions including e.g. background noise, illumination, and all kinds of interference happening with regard to realistic settings. Often job providers in crowdsourcing micro-task platforms assume workers to be anonymous individuals who are motivated to complete tasks by small monetary rewards. However, crowd workers are a mixed population with a wide range of motives and perspectives [12]. Previous studies show that crowd workers are at least partly motivated by aspects other than monetary rewards such as killing time or having fun [2, 10]. While motivation implies both the energy and direction of action [6], the source of the workers’ motivation, its direction and its effect on other aspects such as quality of responses needs to be investigated further. Work motivational theories often divide motivation into the following two types. Intrinsic motivation refers to activities which are interesting by themselves; they provide spontaneous satisfaction [7]. In contrast, extrinsic motivation leads to satisfaction that is not rooted in the activity itself but rather in the extrinsic, separable consequences, such as the (monetary) rewards, to which the activity leads [7]. Kaufmann et al. [11] introduced a model based on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation categorization for paid crowdsourcing micro-task platforms. They showed that extrinsic motivation has a strong effect on the time workers spent on the platform. Their model contains enjoyment and community-based motivation as part of the intrinsic motivation, whereas payoffs and social motivations are part of extrinsic motivation. Rogstadius et al. [14] investigate the effect of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in paid crowdsourcing markets. They conclude that increasing the extrinsic motivators leads to faster completion speed and increases workers’ willingness to accept the task, while increasing the intrinsic motivators improves the output quality. This finding is in line with the Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET) [4]. Furthermore CET warns that extrinsic motivators such as tangible rewards or deadlines may lead to the reduction or even the disappearing of intrinsic motivation in particular settings. From practical perspectives many tasks in paid crowdsourcing platforms are not intrinsically interesting and most crowd workers have to earn money. This is also true for many other situations, as Ryan and Deci [16] stated: “Indeed, much of what people do is not, strictly speaking, intrinsically motivated, especially after early childhood when the freedom to be intrinsically motivated is increasingly curtailed by social pressures to do activities that are not interesting and to assume a variety of new responsibilities”. Therefore extrinsic motivation and factors influencing it should be investigated in more details. The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) [5, 16] provides a framework for studying human motivation and personality. The SDT includes several sub theories, such as the abovementioned CET, which is focusing on the influence of contextual elements on intrinsic motivation. Other sub theories are the Organismic Integration Theory (OIT), which aims to explain the development and dynamics of extrinsic motivation, the Causality Orientation Theory (COT), which describes individual differences in Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM 978-1-4503-3128-9/14/11…$15.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2660114.2660122 31 Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. CrowdMM’14, November 7, 2014, Orlando, Florida, USA.