This brief article includes a sampling of the findings from Zahava Doering's 2004 study, "Evaluation of Museum Educational Programs: A National Perspective."
In this article, Megan Axelsen, an Associate Lecturer and a PhD student at the University of Queensland in Australia, explores visitors' perceptions of festivals in art galleries. Axelsen also identifies several characteristics that distinguish festivals from other special events.
This article discusses the value and process of effective front-end evaluation. The article examines when and how museums should conduct front-end studies to inform the development of exhibits.
This article describes the front-end evaluation process for the Exploration Zone project at the Field Museum of Natural History. It discusses the value of front-end meta-analysis and who should perform such research.
This article includes five procedural steps (the 5 A's) and ten design principals (the 10 C's), which can be useful for redesigning museum maps, whether produced in-house or by an outside contractor.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Dennis O'BrienVisitor Studies Association
This article examines wayfinding in museums: what is it, how do museums accomplish it, and how happy are museums with their wayfinding programs and handout maps. The article includes findings from a 1995-1996 study of 41 village museums across America based on a 38-part questionnaire.
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Dennis O'BrienVisitor Studies Association
This article examines how and why museums fail to engage visitors in cultural dialogue. Author D. Neil Bramer, executive director of the Elmhurst Art Museum, argues that empathy is the key and that museum professionals, including visitor researchers, must use empathy to better understand and respond to the needs of visitors.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
D. Neil Bramer
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This article discusses a new visitor studies group in the UK designed to meet the growing demand for networking and support in the visitor studies field. The article describes how the "Visitor Studies Group" came to be and the value of membership to professionals in the UK.
This article examines the effect of one government policy, the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), on museums (and other institutions as defined broadly by AAM). The article discusses how the increased emphasis on outcome evaluation in GPRA, and from funders in general, will be passed on to grantees, and how they need to respond.
This article is a review of the statistics program SigmaStat 2.03. It is an easy-to-use program, particularly useful for formative and remedial work where one may be doing a number of different tests of labels, interactive displays, orientation materials, and/or short exit surveys.
This article focuses on the setting factors associated with live animal exhibit design from the visitor perspective. Setting includes the physical features and events occurring in both the animal enclosure and the visitor areas.
This article discusses research conducted among families and museum visitors in the Midwest from 1996-1998. The study found that women, more often than men, initiate family museum visits and that a mother's parenting strategies are strongly related to her ideas about the nature of knowledge and how she comes to know and understand herself and the world.