Interpreting Apartheid: Visitors' Perceptions of the District Six Museum

This paper builds on and extends the conceptualization of “hot” interpretation (Ballantyne and Uzzell 1993) by presenting empirical data regarding visitors' perceptions of the District Six Museum in Cape Town, South Africa. The study examines visitors' reasons for visiting, expectations of the visit, responses to the visit, and suggestions for change, in relation to the differing needs of previous residents, local and international visitors. Results of the study are discussed in terms of the need to facilitate connections between interpretive content and visitors' previous experiences and knowledge. The paper considers issues of hot interpretation when a community museum increasingly attracts national and international visitors.     

Beyond Learning: Exploring Visitors' Perceptions of the Value and Benefits of Museum Experiences

Abstract This paper explores the beneficial outcomes that visitors seek and obtain from a museum visit, in terms that are not related to learning outcomes. It uses a deductive qualitative approach to investigate the meaning and value of a museum visit from the visitors' perspective. Three different levels of the meaning of the experience are considered: the attributes of the setting that visitors value; the experiences they engage in; and the benefits they derive. The findings confirm the importance of the “satisfying experiences” framework for understanding visitor experiences in museums, and extend this understanding in relation to the beneficial outcomes these experiences produce. The study also highlights the importance of “restoration” as an outcome of a museum visit. It is argued that the concept of the museum as a restorative environment, which enables visitors to relax and recover from the stresses of life, is worthy of further research attention. These insights will enable museum practitioners to better understand and meet their visitors' multiple needs and expectations.     

Rethinking the Visitor Experience: Transforming Obstacle into Purpose

The purposes of museums and those of their visitors often have little in common—despite the growing body of knowledge about museum learning and visitors' motivations. Based on concepts of experiential learning envisioned a century ago by the American educator and philosopher John Dewey, this paper explores bringing those purposes into closer alignment. A re‐evaluation of several factors—including criteria of experience, content organization, and the nature of inquiry—could lead to exhibitions more closely aligned with visitors' processes of self‐motivated activity and museums' goals for informal learning. One way is to shape exhibits and activity around problematical situations developed out of the exhibit experience itself and shaped by visitors' own purposes. By shifting focus from knowledge taxonomies to problem‐solving situations, museums could increase their exhibitions' potential for providing engaging educational experiences to visitors.     

博物馆学习视角下的展览环境效果评估——以展线与照明设计对观众注意力的影响研究为例

博物馆学习的研究成果表明,展览除了可以通过自身的内容来对观众施加影响之外,环境设计也同样会对观众的参观效果产生影响。因此,合理评估展览环境的效果、并针对性地发现环境设计中的不足之处,将有助于展览提升总体的教育效果和观众的参观体验。本文以2017—2018年间在山东博物馆所进行的一系列博物馆学习相关研究与展览评估实践为基础,从观众的注意力水平入手,计算展厅中各个区域的“吸引力”,进而实现对展览环境效果的评估。此外,在这一过程中发现,展厅环境中的“展线”与“照明”设计,对观众的学习效果有潜在影响,值得引起博物馆在环境设计时的关注。     

观众究竟在博物馆里参观到了什么？

在当今社会,博物馆为提升全民素质起到越来越重要的作用。为了更好地发挥博物馆的社会教育功能,博物馆馆员在教育活动设计或者展览设计的过程中有必要了解观众的参观需求以及参观偏好。因此,为了体现“以观众为中心”的工作理念,作者从“观众”的视角,对一次博物馆的参观体验进行观察和反思。本次探索发现,由于观众自身所处的社会文化背景的差异,他们面对同一件展品有着不同的关注点和兴趣点。这种差异性提醒博物馆馆员在与观众进行互动的过程中,需要了解观众的不同需求和不同偏好。并且,这种参观视角的多样性也为博物馆的教育工作提供了创意的源泉。     

观众有效参观时间调查分析——基于天津自然博物馆新馆生态厅的实证研究

观众参观时间是博物馆观众研究的重要内容之一,反映了观众对展览的关注程度。本文利用跟踪观察法调查了2014—2019年天津自然博物馆新馆生态厅的观众有效参观时间以及展板和多媒体的使用情况。结果发现:观众有效参观时间总体偏短,且在不同人群差异不显著,但在不同展区差异明显。在影响观众有效参观时间的重要因素中,标本大小和标本珍稀度是关键因素。观众对展板和多媒体的利用率均较低。为提高观众有效参观时间,建议为观众提供讲解、合理分配展品、适当延长展线、展板和多媒体要少而精且内容应及时更新等。     

Collaborative Exhibitions and Visitor Reactions: The Case of Nitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life

Collaborative exhibitions built by aboriginal communities and museums often seek to reposition aboriginal peoples as the authors and experts of their cultures, and to assert their active and continued presence in the contemporary world. This article explores the impact of collaborative exhibitions on museum visitors' experiences and their potential to reshape the public's perception of aboriginal peoples. Interviews conducted with visitors to Nitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life, a permanent exhibition created by Blackfoot Elders and museum staff at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, demonstrate that museum visitors rarely recognized the extent of the collaboration, and thus rarely equated Nitsitapiisinni with concepts of self‐representation or self‐determination. However, other messages were successfully communicated to museum visitors, namely the impact of colonialism, the efforts to revitalize Blackfoot culture, and the importance of Blackfoot spirituality. This study provides some interesting insights about public perceptions that will help promote deeper reflection on the issues surrounding collaboratively developed exhibitions and the first‐person authorship of First Nations cultures.     

Why Do They Come? Listening to Visitors at a Decorative Arts Museum

This article presents the background, methodology, and results of a yearlong study of visitor motivation conducted by the Visitor Research Team (VRT) of Winterthur, a Delaware decorative arts museum. The article details the VRT's use of focus groups to determine what really motivates visitors to attend museums. Study results are consistent with recent work in the field showing that learning and recreation are the primary motivations behind museum visitation. Visitors valued museums as places for active, personal learning through the observation of objects and as outlets for physical and mental relaxation and escapism. Results also show that Winterthur visitors ascribe meanings to the words learning and recreation that are different from education and entertainment. The author calls on museums to discover the needs of their audiences and to design marketing and programming using visitors' vocabularies to promote and provide meaningful museum experiences.     

An Identity‐Centered Approach to Understanding Museum Learning

This paper advances the thesis that museum visitors' identities, motivations and learning are inextricably intertwined. All individuals enact multiple identities, many of which are situational and constructed in response to a social and physical context. Identity influences motivations, which in turn directly influence behavior and learning. Visitors to museums tend to enact one or various combinations of five museum‐specific identities, described here as: explorer; facilitator; professional/hobbyist; experience seeker; and spiritual pilgrim. Preliminary findings suggest that these identity‐specific motivational categories might help to explain the long‐term learning impacts of a museum visit.     

课堂提问框架在自然博物馆讲解中的运用

博物馆讲解中的提问互动,在吸引观众注意力、激发观众兴趣、引起观众思考、加深观众对展览理解方面发挥着重要的作用。本文利用课堂教学研究常用的提问框架分析了两位自然博物馆教育人员讲解过程中的提问类型、观众回答情况和教育人员的反馈方式。发现教育人员有比较强烈的提问互动意识,能够围绕展品和讲解主题提问,但还存在问题层次性不明显、对观众认知水平分析不够、各类问题比例不均衡、候答时间过短、提问反馈中有效追问和鼓励不足等问题。可以通过设置核心问题、基于观众认知水平控制问题难度、增加问题多样性、适时调控候答时间、在提问反馈中追问并增加评价性语言等方法提升提问的有效性。     

Visitor Meaning‐Making at Grand Canyon's Tusayan Museum and Ruin

Abstract Meaning‐making describes a process by which visitors transform museum experiences into new knowledge and memories. Meaning‐making is influenced by visitors' leisure motivations, prior knowledge, socio‐cultural context brought to the experience, personally‐guided interpretation, and events since the visit. In this study, visitors' long‐term recollections included contextual references to how and why they remembered what they experienced. Forty visitors were interviewed by telephone six months after attending a Native American interpretive program at Grand Canyon National Park's Tusayan Museum. Two patterns associated with a constructivist view of meaning‐making were discerned: a) visitors' integration of indoor and outdoor exhibits and b) visitors' comparisons of modern family and community with a more ancient culture. The presence of contextual indicators within visitor recall suggests that new knowledge may be constructed from factors carried forth from the meaning‐making process. Evidence within the data suggests that exhibits made more relevant to visitors' socio‐cultural identity may enhance on‐site experiences.     

CULTURE and culture at the Royal Ontario Museum: Anthropology Meets Marketing,Part 1

The museum in the contemporary era imports from the nineteenth century a venerable idea: that the first responsibility of a public art museum is to enlighten and improve its visitors, morally, socially, and politically. Yet visitors often seem to have arrived from another planet, bringing with them their own cultural meanings and agendas. A series of two articles presents ethnographic data, anthropological analysis, and a marketing perspective to suggest why the visitors' points of view may seem vertiginously strange to museum personnel. This article, Part One, characterizes the conflict between host and guest as the outcome of two competing models of culture: “preferment” and “transformation.” In a subsequent issue of Curator, Part Two will examine the influence of consumer culture on these models, and offer strategies for rapprochement.     

What Drives Attendance at Informal Learning Activities? A Study of Two Art Programs

Multiple reasons shape how young people and families choose to participate in informal learning programs at museums and other settings. Youth interest is likely a factor, but so might be geographic proximity, institutional affiliation, household income, and race/ethnicity. We examined the relative impact of these factors through a comparative study of two art programs; one a small, neighborhood‐based organization focused on art and STEM, and the other a program in a well‐established art museum. The smaller program tended to draw youth from closer geographic proximity. Interest in art drove attendance at both programs, but institutional membership was also important. Demographic factors also were a factor, and race/ethnicity was more strongly associated with program placement than household income. We discuss the importance of better understanding of such factors as museums and other programs continue to grow as important sites for learning.     

Equity of Access to Cultural Heritage: Museum Experience as a Facilitator of Learning and Socialization in Children with Autism

This article discusses a study focused on investigating the effects of an art museum cultural experience on learning and behaviors of visitors with special needs. The participants, selected by specific inclusion and exclusion criteria, were 10 families with children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The author examined how the museum environment, with its opportunities for free‐choice, object‐based, and inquiry‐based learning, helped facilitate their educational and social needs. To record changes in the subjects' content knowledge and behavior, the author employed a mixed‐methods design, including the standardized Social Responsiveness Scale, parent surveys, behavioral observations, task evaluations, and parent interviews. The findings demonstrate that participation in a tailored educational museum program positively influences cognitive and social behaviors of children living with autism, thereby contributing to their overall well‐being. The paper also discusses implications for other museums nationwide working to establish quality access programs with long‐term benefits for special needs communities.     

Behavior vs. Time: Understanding How Visitors Utilize the Milan Natural History Museum

Abstract To evaluate visitors' use of the exhibitions and the communication strategy of the Milan Natural History Museum, we compared results gathered with two methods, based respectively on the timing of visitors and on the unobtrusive observation of exhibit‐use behaviors. We collected data from a sample of 100 groups of visitors (not guided), randomly selected at the museum entrance. We recorded the following data for each group: halls visited, length of stay in each hall, any kind of behavior showing visitor/exhibition interaction and the displays where interactions occurred. The study shows that visiting time does not give enough information about the actual use of exhibits by the audience. The investigation of visitor/exhibition interactions revealed itself to be the most usual method to describe the visitors' use of the exhibitions. The most important factor influencing visits to the Milan Natural History Museum is the communication technique used in the exhibition areas.     

CULTURE and culture at the Royal Ontario Museum: Anthropology Meets Marketing,Part Two

This paper reports anthropological research conducted at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) by the author over three years. The purpose of the research was a traditional anthropological one: to listen to visitors at length and in depth. Part One, published in Curator 46 (2), offered ethnographic data, anthropological analysis, and a marketing perspective to suggest why the visitor's point of view may seem vertiginously strange to museum personnel. It characterized the conflict between host and guest as the outcome of two competing models of culture: “preferment” and “transformation.” In Part Two, visitors' experiences of the museum serve to illuminate a shift in attitudes toward museum culture. This research establishes a typology of consumer segments and a set of strategic recommendations for freeing the museum from the preferment model without abandoning those visitors who continue to embrace it.     

Interactives and Visitor Learning

Abstract Interactives—computers and other multimedia components, physical manipulatives (including whole‐body and tabletop activities), and simulations—occur in all types of museums. There is considerable interest in the nature of the learning that happens when visitors use interactives. Museum professionals have enlisted constructivist theory to support the notion that interactive elements are invaluable components of any exhibition experience, and are effective learning tools that enable active visitor engagement. Interactives are also seen as vital to sustaining institutional image and expanding institutional popularity. Despite the increasing use of interactives in exhibitions and the substantial investments being made in their design and maintenance, there is a paucity of research as to whether these constructivist assumptions are supported. There is little work exploring visitors' perceptions of specific types of interactives, or the role of interactivity in the visitor experience generally. Museum staff thus have a limited ability to make informed decisions about the level and type of interactivity that might enhance exhibition experiences. This paper describes a collaborative effort in 2001 by researchers at the Powerhouse Museum (PHM), Sydney; the Institute for Learning Innovation (the Institute), Annapolis, Maryland; and Curtin University of Technology (Curtin) and Scitech Discovery Centre (Scitech), both in Perth, Western Australia. This study investigated two aspects of interactivity: 1) visitor perceptions of interactivity in two different contexts, a museum and a science center; and 2) the types of short‐ and long‐term learning that resulted from use of interactives in these two institutions.     

Museum Web search behavior of special interest visitors

There is a current trend to make museum collections widely accessible by digitising cultural heritage collections for the Internet. The present study takes a user perspective and explores the characteristics of online museum visitors' web search behaviour. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was deployed in a case study at a National Museum of Military History. Quantitatively, data from a web questionnaire survey and a user study of interactive searching behaviour were collected and analysed. Qualitatively, observation protocols were coded and analysed based on inductive content analysis. It was found that metadata elements on factual object related information, provenience, and historic context was indicated to be relevant by the majority of the respondents, characterising the group of special interest museum visitors as information hungry. Further, four main characteristics of online museum visitors' searching behaviour were identified: (a) searching behaviour has a strong visual aspect, (b) topical searching is predominantly exploratory, (c) users apply broad known item searches, and (d) meaning making is central to the search process.