In this article, John H. Falk, Ph.D., of Science Learning, Inc., discusses leisure decisions influencing African-Americans use of museums. Falk cites findings from two research studies that investigated the relative importance of a variety of critical variables postulated at possible reasons for the under-utilization of museums by African-Americans.
In this article related to evaluation and multicultural audiences, Jacksonville State University's Stephen Bitgood presents a "progress report" on a visitor center and environmental education project in Puerto Rico that is being designed to serve both the local Puerto rican audience as well as the international visitor. Bitgood shares findings from the study featured in a report to the Caribbean National Forest, part of the USDA National Forest Service.
In this article, Jacksonville State University's Stephen Bitgood and Don Thompson address the issue of how museums can appeal to multicultural audiences and assess the impact of their attempts to attract new audiences. Bitgood and Thompson outline a four-step process for addressing problems of multicultural audiences.
In this article, Susan Fisher of the Harn Museum of Art and John J. Koran, Jr. of the Florida Museum of Natural History discuss their study designed to demonstrate the feasibility of conducting evaluations at archeological sites. Specifically, the researchers conducted a summative evaluation of epistemic curiosity and knowledge of Spanish speaking and non-Spanish speaking visitors to the Maya site of Uxmal in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.
In this article, Lynda Kelly, Evaluation Coordinator at the Australian Museum, discusses the challenges of exhibit evaluation and visitor research for audiences of and exhibits about indigenous peoples. In particular, Kelly discusses the evaluation work associated with the "Indigenous Australians: Australia's First Peoples" exhibit.
The authors present an exploratory study of Black middle school boys who play digital games. The study was conducted through observations and interviews with Black American middle school boys about digital games as an informal learning experience. The first goal of the study is to understand the cultural context that Black students from economically disadvantaged inner-city neighborhoods bring to playing digital games. The second goal of the study is to examine how this cultural context affects the learning opportunities with games. Third, the authors examine how differences in game play are
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Betsy James DiSalvoKevin CrowleyRoy Norwood
Genetics was developed by The Tech staff in collaboration with Stanford University and was funded by the National Institutes of Health Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program. The evaluation documents the impact and effectiveness of the exhibition using timing and tracking observations and exit interviews. It also examines the partnership between The Tech and Stanford University through interviews with graduate students, who conduct programs in the exhibition, and their supervisor (results are not included in this summary).
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Randi KornThe Tech Museum of Innovation
This report describes a summative evaluation of Secrets of Circles, a 2,600 square foot exhibition created by Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose and funded by the National Science Foundation. The exhibition and related programs were designed to highlight the uses of circles and wheels in everyday life. Circles have properties that make them extremely effective as an engineering tool, and they are ubiquitous in cultures around the world. The appendix of this report inclues interview and observation protocols and questionnaires used in this study.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Sue AllenChildren's Discovery Museum of San Jose
The paper describes how middle school students appropriated and transformed a particular learning experience in an afterschool literacy program in Philadelphia. The learning experience was designed to ensure that urban African-American, middle school girls had access to technology and learned how to use it to create a web page that showcased future career aspirations. The program’s director enlisted the help of male, Caucasian high school students from the suburbs of Philadelphia to facilitate the technology learning experience for the middle school youth (both girls and boys were in the
This study is relevant to educators seeking to expand science practices and discourse in their programs for youth. The author finds that a lack of understanding of everyday communication patterns of African-American students leads many science teachers to shut down students just as they are beginning to express interest and active involvement in the science classroom. The result may be orderly looking classrooms, but the youth have in fact “checked out” and are merely following procedures. This paper presents a framework for analyzing various levels of authentic involvement in the science
In 2012, Concord Evaluation Group (CEG) conducted an evaluation of the impact of Peep and the Big Wide World (Peep) resources on Spanish-speaking families with preschool-aged children. The three-pronged evaluation included a National Family Study in which 112 Spanish-speaking families who used the Peep resources were compared to Spanish-speaking families who did not use the Peep resources. It also included an In-Depth Family Study -- an experiment conducted in the metro Boston area in which 36 Spanish-speaking families who used the Peep resources were compared to Spanish-speaking families who
During 2007, the Exhibits Department conducted a summative evaluation of Wild About Otters to document visitors' interest in and their responses to this temporary exhibition. This study was conducted in three parts to examine visitors' behaviors and responses to aspects of the exhibition, including conservation content, emotional reactions and bilingual graphic panels. Research questions 1. How are visitors using the exhibition? Which exhibits are they attending to and for how long? 2. What did visitors think Wild About Otters was about? 3. What conservation content did visitors remember