In this article, Ilze Groves of Questacon, Australia's national interactive science and technology centre, discusses the museum's efforts in 1996 to evaluate a group of sixteen prototype hands-on exhibits. This study involved visitor observations and interviews.
In this article, Janette Griffin of the University of Technology in Sydney discusses a project designed to investigate the applicability of a School-Museum Learning Framework piloted in an earlier study. Implementation of the Framework involved 5th and 6th grade students bringing their own chosen questions or "areas of inquiry" to the museum and students having considerable control over their learning within parameters provided by the teacher.
In this article, Judith Gleeson, of the Communication and Language Studies Department at Victoria University of Technology in Melbourne, discusses the role of narrative discourse in the museum experience and evaluation. Gleeson sites a study through the Australian Woman's Weekly that analyzed letters from people featuring narratives of why they visited museums.
In this article, Gillian Fuller, Communications Consultant and Lecturer at the University of New South Wales, argues how semiotics--the systematic study of meaning making---can influence exhibit evaluation and visitor research.
In this article, Linda Ferguson, Audience Advocate and Evaluator at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, discusses how the Memorial represents "the enemy" in its galleries in a way that meets the varying needs of their diverse audience. Ferguson shares results from a front-end evaluation study aimed at tackling this issue.
In this paper, Elena Pol and Mikel Asensio of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid discuss their research about how visitors perceive different kinds of artistic representations and which elements they interpret from masterpieces. The authors provide an overview of their work in this area, including three studies about artistic style.
In this paper, researchers from the Smithsonian's Institutional Studies Office discuss a study of the "Ocean Planet" exhibition presented at the National Museum of Natural History (April 1995-April 1996). The purpose of this study was to measure the degree to which the exhibition's message was communicated to visitors and the extent to which the exhibition goals were realized.
In this paper, Kathryn Nelson of the University of Washington discusses her efforts to study visitor response to naturalistic exhibits. Nelson shares evaluation methods and findings of Northern Trail exhibit at the Woodland Park Zoological Gardens. The purpose of the study was to assess how well visitors responded to the exhibit's attractiveness, enjoyment potential, and animal well-being as well as evaluate whether visitors felt they learned facts or attitudes during their visit and their overall impressions of the exhibit.
In this paper, Volker Kirchberg of the University of Lueneburg and Basica Research Institute analyses catchment areas to better understand museums' greater impacts. The author defines these areas as not only a function of distance of the the potential visitors' residence to the venue but also a function of socio-demographic structures of residential areas.
In this paper, Patricia Jelen of the Morton Arboretum and Jeff Hayward of People, Places & Design Research explore the factors which affect the process of applying research results, including leadership, resources, and incentives for change. The authors discuss strategic planning and research efforts of the Morton Arboretum as an exemplar.
In this paper, Nancy T. Haas of the Please Touch Museum discusses Project Explore, a new research initiative that explores learning in children's museums. Project Explore is a collaborative effort of two organizations, PleaseTouch Museum in Philadelphia and Harvard's Project Zero in Cambridge. Using a dual research approach, Please Touch Museum researchers investigated exactly what it is that children are learning and how to best enable or enhance their learning process; while the Project Zero team studied how children engage in exhibits by looking at the Entry Points approach to learning
In this paper, Daryl Fischer of MUSYNERGY discusses the Denver Art Museum's use of "visitor panels" to generate substantive changes in new exhibits. These qualitative studies rely on input from panelists who are representative of the museum's target audience. Fischer provides an overview of how the Denver Art Museum used visitor panels in the reinstallation of the two ares of the museum's permanent collection.