Engage Wider Audience or Facilitate Quality Answers? a Mixed-methods Analysis of Questioning Strategies for Research Sensemaking on a Community Q&A Site

Discussing research-sensemaking questions on Community Question and Answering (CQA) platforms has been an increasingly common practice for the public to participate in science communication. Nonetheless, how users strategically craft research-sensemaking questions to engage public participation and facilitate knowledge construction is a significant yet less understood problem. To fill this gap, we collected 837 science-related questions and 157,684 answers from Zhihu, and conducted a mixed-methods study to explore user-developed strategies in proposing research-sensemaking questions, and their potential effects on public engagement and knowledge construction. Through open coding, we captured a comprehensive taxonomy of question-crafting strategies, such as eyecatching narratives with counter-intuitive claims and rigorous descriptions with data use. Regression analysis indicated that these strategies correlated with user engagement and answer construction in different ways (e.g., emotional questions attracted more views and answers), yet there existed a general divergence between wide participation and quality knowledge establishment, when most questioning strategies could not ensure both. Based on log analysis, we further found that collaborative editing afforded unique values in refining research-sensemaking questions regarding accuracy, rigor, comprehensiveness and attractiveness. We propose design implications to facilitate accessible, accurate and engaging science communication on CQA platforms.
Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW 2024)