Analysing visits to English museums 1850–2015: a research note

ABSTRACT

Understanding why people visit museums is of interest to both cultural economics and museum studies. Most existing research relies on survey data concerned with visitors, their immediate background, and their experience of a particular museum. Very few studies have taken a more general perspective and analysed macro-level societal factors, such as inflation, educational attainment and unemployment, and their influence on the number of visits to museums. The conventional approach relies on visitor surveys to understand what drives visits and people’s general views on museums.

In a departure from these conventional approaches, this article presents a macro-level approach, using a unique dataset of visit counts for 40 English museums and visitor attractions spanning the period 1850–2015. It examines the effect of socio-economic factors on visits using panel data analysis and macro-level variables. The results suggest that inflation rates, average earnings, and educational level (using the indicator of secondary school attendance) all significantly influence the number of visits made. However, the most important variable is the number of visits recorded for the previous year. These findings are discussed in relation to existing studies, and some suggestions for future research are proposed.     

Metacognition in Physics/Chemistry Teacher Education—a Danish project

Teacher education in Denmark lasts 4 years of which 2.8 years are allocated to a common education while 1.2 years are used for specialization in two subjects, preparing for teaching the two subjects in lower secondary school. Traditionally, the science specialization parts of the education have been heavily influenced by science centered curriculum thinking, but in August 1994 we started a cooperation aimed at improving the physics/chemistry specialization by taking into account recent research in science education. The project was inspired by constructivist thinking emphasizing metacognition, but another major consideration was integration of pedagogical thinking and physics/chemistry thinking. We describe the relevant parts of the Danish educational system as well as our initial considerations and goals and their implementation in the actual teacher education during the first year of the project, i.e. half way through. In connection with the project we developed a ‘teaching/learning cycle’ which is described in detail.