The Collaboration for Ongoing Visitor Experience Studies (COVES) is designed to unite science centers across the country to systematically collect, analyze, and report on visitor experience data. We envision a collaborative museum community seeking to better understand and improve the visitor experience. We believe that studying the visitor experience in science centers—who visits a particular museum, why they visit, what they experience during their visit, and how they react to different aspects of their experience—can help organizations learn about their visitors, make evidence-based
This project explores augmented reality (AR) technology as a way to make STEM content accessible to Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) learners in "live" presentation settings found within science centers and museums. The current ways of providing communication and information access to DHH museum visitors require DHH learners to split their attention between the visual focus of the experience and the interpreter or captioning display. As a result, DHH learners are forced to decide which information to miss during live presentations, thus presentations may not be fully comprehended by the DHH learner. Furthermore, this issue perpetuates a lack of inclusivity and accessibility in informal STEM learning environments. The work focuses on investigating approaches to develop an AR platform with a near-eye display that will allow DHH visitors to receive signed or captioned instruction while still looking at and interacting with the intended exhibits. The new platform will allow for transmission of live and spontaneous instruction. Researchers will evaluate and recommend efficient ways to make information at science centers and museums accessible to the DHH population based on data collected from DHH learners. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning program's Pilot and Feasibility Studies which seek new approaches to design and development of STEM learning to be accessible to all learners including underrepresented groups in informal environments.
The researchers will investigate the following research question: how can the use of Augmented Reality (AR) as a method of support service delivery improve the engagement of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) adolescent learners in semi-structured learning environments? Both formative and summative evaluations will be conducted from two different angles: (1) an engineering-centric evaluation focused on technical development and (2) an educational-research centric evaluation focused on pilot studies on user experiences, attitudes, and learning outcomes. Both qualitative and quantitative data on the use of this technology will be collected. The evaluation methods include attitudinal surveys (pre/post), ethnographic observations, pre/post tests of content knowledge, and semi-structured group and individual interviews. This project will be conducted by researchers in the Center on Access Technology at National Technical Institute for the Deaf, one of the colleges of Rochester Institute of Technology, in partnership with the Rochester Museum & Science Center, which includes the Rochester Challenger Learning Center. This project represents a first step in setting future directions for research & development and to make educational materials more accessible to the DHH community.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Wendy DannelsSara SchleyBrian TragerMel Chua
Engagement is the cornerstone of learning in informal science education. During free-choice learning in museums and science centers, visitor engagement shapes how learners interact with exhibits, navigate through exhibit spaces, and form attitudes, interests, and understanding of science. Recent advances in multimodal learning analytics are creating novel opportunities for expanding the range and richness of measures of visitor engagement in free-choice settings. In particular, multimodal learning analytics offer significant potential for integrating multiple data sources to devise a composite picture of visitors' cognitive, affective, and behavioral engagement. The project will center on providing a rich empirical account of meaningful visitor engagement with interactive tabletop science exhibits among individual visitors and small groups, as well as uncovering broader tidal patterns in visitor engagement that unfold across exhibit spaces. A key objective of the project is creating models and practitioner-focused learning analytic tools that will inform the best practices of exhibit designers and museum educators. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program. As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, AISL funds research and innovative approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. The research team will conduct data-rich investigations of visitors' learning experiences with multimodal learning analytics that fuse the rich multichannel data streams produced by fully-instrumented exhibit spaces with the data-driven modeling functionalities afforded by recent advances in machine learning and educational data mining. The research team will conduct a series of visitor studies of naturalistic engagement in solo, dyad, and group interactions as visitors explore interactive tabletop science exhibits. The studies will utilize eye trackers to capture visitors' moment-to-moment attention, facial expression analysis and quantitative field observations to track visitors' emotional states, trace logs generated by exhibit software, as well as motion-tracking sensors and coded video recordings to capture visitors' behavioral interactions. The studies will also use conversation recordings and pre-post assessment measures to capture visitors' science understanding and inquiry processes. With these multimodal data streams as training data, the research team will use probabilistic and neural machine learning techniques to devise learning analytic models of visitor engagement. The project will be conducted by a partnership between North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. The research team will 1) design a data-rich multimodal visitor study methodology, 2) create the Visitor Informatics Platform, a suite of open source software tools for multimodal visitor analytics, and 3) launch the Multimodal Visitor Data Warehouse, a curated visitor experience data archive. Together, the multimodal visitor study methodology, the Visitor Informatics Platform, and the Multimodal Visitor Data Warehouse will enable researchers and practitioners in the informal science education community to utilize multimodal learning analytics in their own informal learning environments. It is anticipated that the project will advance the field of informal STEM learning by extending and enriching measures of meaningful visitor engagement, expanding the evidence base for visitor experience design principles, and providing learning analytic tools to support museum educators. By enhancing understanding of the cognitive, affective, and behavioral dynamics underlying visitor experiences in science museums, informal science educators will be well-positioned to design learning experiences that are more effective and engaging. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
James LesterJames MinogueJonathan RoweNorth Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
The "Expanding Repertoires COV Final Brief" is a report by the Committee of Visitors for the NSF Pathways project, "Expanding Repertoires of Practice: Improving Informal Science Learning Experiences for Preschool Dual Language Learners." As an exploratory research project, the Committee of Visitors - or COV - provided critical, reflective review on the progress of the project and served as the de facto evaluator for the project.
Informal science learning (ISL) organizations that are successful at providing meaningful science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) experiences for Latino children, youth, and their families share some common traits. They have leaders and staff who believe in the importance of developing culturally relevant models and frameworks that meet the needs and acknowledge the legacy of STEAM in Latino communities. Such organizations are willing to take risks to create experiences that are culturally meaningful, garner funding and implement programs by working closely with their
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Cheryl JuarezVerónika NúñezExploratorium
Museum visitors typically look at only about a third of the elements of an exhibition, and often give only limited attention to those. Can visitors really be getting something worthwhile from such partial usage of an exhibition? This article explores how visitors use exhibitions for “identity work,” the processes through which we construct, maintain, and adapt our sense of personal identity, and persuade other people to believe in that identity. Museums offer powerful opportunities for doing identity work, but the visitor does not need to engage with exhibition content deeply or systematically
Many scientists want to connect with the public, but their efforts to do so are not always easy or effective. Visionary programs and institutions are leading the way identifying the support needed to enable scientists’ connections with the public. However, the current appetite by -- and demand for -- scientists to do this exceeds the capacity of those who facilitate quality communication and engagement efforts. More can be done to ensure that those who support scientists are networked, sharing best practices, and supported by a reliable infrastructure.
This workshop series, convened by the Kavli, Rita Allen, Packard and Moore Foundations, was intended to view the entire system of people who support scientists’ engagement and communication efforts in order to explore how this system can be most effective and sustainable. The discussions examined where this system is thriving, the limits people within the system face and what can be done to ensure their efforts are commensurate with the demand for quality communication and engagement support.
Conducted over four closely scheduled workshops in late 2017 and early 2018, the convenings brought together leaders in different parts of the field who bridge scientists and the public and led to the emergence of a number of key priority areas. While the initial intention was to also hold a plenary event to provide a more holistic view of scientists’ support system in order to collectively discern directions to advance the field, we feel a more efficient way forward right now is to focus our efforts and resources on building community and advancing these priority areas.
Our invitation-only workshops brought together scientists, academic leaders, engagement professionals, researchers, communication trainers, and foundation leaders. For each workshop, we also commissioned a “landscape overview”, to better understand the high-level state of each community. Workshops included:
Workshop I: Communication and engagement training programs - Dec. 4-5, 2017 at SUNY Global Center/Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science in New York
Workshop II: Associations, societies and other professional organizations - Feb. 28 - March 1, 2018 at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, MD
Workshop III: Academic institutions - March 27-28, 2018 at UC San Diego
Workshop IV: Science engagement facilitators (museums, science festivals, connectors) - May 2-3, 2018 at Monterey Bay Aquarium
TBD - Workshop V: Plenary event
The goal of the workshops was to explore how to ensure scientists’ communication and engagement support is effective and sustained. In doing so, we hoped to 1) deepen our understanding of how scientists are currently supported in these areas, 2) map the broader support system to expose the opportunities and obstacles that play a role in achieving this goal, and 3) identify strategic and practical next steps that move us closer to this goal. This initiative also aimed to forge and strengthen networks across communities and institutions – and in so doing, take a view of the entire system to explore how everyone can better ensure their efforts are impactful, mutually supportive, and connected to a greater whole.
Included in the links below are summaries from each workshop.
This position paper, co-authored Center for Childhood Creativity's Director Elizabeth Rood and Director of Research Helen Hadani, details the importance of exposing children ages 0-8 to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) experiences. The review of more than 150 empirical studies led Rood and Hadani to conclude that, despite what has been previously thought, modern research supports the understanding that children are capable of abstract thinking and STEM-learning from infancy, beginning before their first birthday.
The Roots of STEM Success, authored in support of classroom
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Helen Shwe HadaniElizabeth RoodAmy EisenmannRuthe FousheeGarrett JaegerGina JaegerJoanna KauffmannKatie KennedyLisa Regalla
This CAISE report is designed to track and characterize sector growth, change and impact, important publications, hot topics/trends, new players, funding, and other related areas in Informal STEM Education (ISE) in 2017. The goal is to provide information and links for use by ISE professionals, science communicators, and interested stakeholders who want to discover new strategies and potential collaborators for project and proposal development. Designed as a slide presentation and divided into sectors, it can be used modularly or as a complete report. Each sector reports on research, events
This article focuses on the efforts of the Collaborative for Early Science Learning (CESL), a group of six museums led by the Sciencenter in Ithaca, New York, that partner with their local Head Start programs to provide training for teachers and opportunities for family engagement. These efforts address the gap between children’s readiness to explore science through everyday experiences and adults’ support. CESL believes that hands-on professional development (PD) opportunities for teachers and families can reduce adult discomfort with facilitating science programming and increase their
Designing Our World (DOW) was a four-year NSF-funded initiative in which the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) sought to promote girls’ pursuit of engineering careers through community-based programming, exhibition development, and identity research. The overarching aim of DOW was to engage girls ages 9–14 with experiences that illuminate the social, personally relevant, and altruistic nature of engineering. In addition to programming for girls, the project also included workshops for parents/caregivers, professional development for staff from community partners; and an exhibition
Designing Our World (DOW) was a four-year NSF-funded initiative in which the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) sought to promote girls’ pursuit of engineering careers through community-based programming, exhibition development, and identity research. The overarching aim of DOW was to engage girls ages 9–14 with experiences that illuminate the social, personally relevant, and altruistic nature of engineering. In addition to programming for girls, the project also included workshops for parents/caregivers, professional development for staff from community partners; and an exhibition