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Visitors Within and Across Art Museums: Creating a Baseline for Comparison While Building Capacity
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| Presenter(s):
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| Joe E Heimlich, Ohio State University, heimlich.1@osu.edu
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| Abstract:
Destination museums have a different relationship with visitors/members than do regional and local museums. Three regional art museums collaborated to evaluate and segment their audiences. The dominant questions asked related to visit expectations, comfort in a museum, engagement with this and other museums, engagement with other cultural and scientific institutions, a segmentation built around experience with museums, perceptions of this museum, and comparisons of this museum to all other art museums. The goals for the evaluator were 1) to help build capacity within the museums for future evaluation work; and 2) to provide baseline data against which each museum could evaluate change efforts.
The presentation will examine the process of capacity building used in this project and then shift toward the findings of interest within each of the three museums as identified by each of the institutions. Finally, the paper will present representative data across the institutions.
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Establishing a Framework for Evaluating Public Value at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History
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| Presenter(s):
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| Bill Watson, Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, watsonb@si.edu
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| Mary Ellen Munley, MEM and Associates, maryellen@mem-and-associates.com
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| Shari Werb, Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, werbs@si.edu
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| Abstract:
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History is the most visited museum in the United States and the largest natural history museum in the world. However, evaluation efforts at NMNH had been unsystematic until a recent effort to develop an integrated, museum-wide effort to measure public value. The museum’s leadership recognized that evaluation that serves as a common thread through all stages of program development and implementation also provides the widest lens for understanding the impact of programs, exhibits, and websites, but it found implementation of that view to be challenging. This paper describes the process through which we developed a set of metrics and protocols for evaluating public value, presents samples of the protocols, and describes the framework being used.
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Using the Depth of Learning Framework in Exhibit Evaluation at a New Science Center
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| Presenter(s):
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| Heather Harkins, Connecticut Science Center, hharkins@ctsciencecenter.org
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| Abstract:
Three months after opening, staff at a new science center in the Northeast United States identified exhibits for systemic evaluation using Barriault’s Depth of Learning Framework. The framework is based on Falk and Dierking’s Contextual Model of Learning in informal settings. Twelve staff members from across the institution (educational programs, visitor services, exhibits) were trained by an in-house evaluator to conduct data collection, entry and analysis. This paper reports on the process used to train this diverse group and lessons learned regarding the application of the Depth of Learning Framework. The presentation will highlight how the findings of the team benefit the work of exhibit evaluation by demonstrating how to effectively apply a “noninterventionist observational framework” (Rennie, 2007).
Reference:
Rennie, L. J. (2007) Learning Science Outside of School. In S. K. Abell & N. G. Lederman (Eds.), Handbook of research on science education (pp. 125-167). Mahweh, NJ: Erlbaum.
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