The Power of Expectation

Abstract In 1999, the first author and his colleagues at the Smithsonian Institution published an article in Curator: The Museum Journal introducing research on the experiences visitors find satisfying in museums. Subsequent data collection has expanded on these findings, as this Research Note will elucidate. In general, the team found that experiences that visitors were looking forward to on entrance tended to have a distribution similar to that of the experiences they found satisfying on exit. The aim of this note is to present data that demonstrates this consistency, and to observe that visitors’ expectations that they would have certain types of experiences upon entering a museum or exhibition were a much larger factor in determining their responses than were minor differences in museum or exhibition content or presentation. In other words, on the whole they came in knowing what experiences they expected, and they left having found them, regardless of what museum personnel presented to them inside.     

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.     

Experiencing Exhibitions: A Review of Studies on Visitor Experiences in Museums

Abstract This article reviews empirically oriented studies from the United States and Europe concerning visitor experiences in museum exhibitions in order to pinpoint similarities and differences among them. In the last 20 years, only a few scholars have tackled this research question in multifaceted empirical ways, although some of them have done so extensively. By comparing theoretical and methodical issues, as well as important results, we are able to outline several analytical building blocks that compose a complex framework of visitor expectations, experiences, and outcomes. Gathering credible data on experiences of visitors in exhibitions or museums, a method dating back to the tracking records of Robinson (1928) , is an ongoing challenge for the empirically inclined science of museum studies. Social scientists at universities and museums have been asking for 20 years: What are the findings regarding factors, structures, and consequences of exhibition experiences? Where are the blind spots? Which questions should be researched?     

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.     

Interactivity: Moving Beyond Terminology

Abstract Museum professionals strive to provide meaningful experiences for visitors. Meaningful experiences are those that provide choice and control in the exploration of ideas, concepts, and objects. In many cases, these experiences occur through an interactive component. Although a number of studies have focused on interactives in museums, the field would benefit from an intensive look at how visitors perceive of and learn from these experiences. Discussion about this topic has been sidetracked by conversations about the terminology that describes this type of experience. Drawing upon studies conducted in this area, this paper looks at the role of interactives in museums by exploring three broad themes: clarity of purpose and underlying assumptions; design factors; and social engagement and learning. In conclusion, suggestions are offered for ways that these studies might inform the development of interactive experiences.     

Writing the History of Humanity: The Role of Museums in Defining Origins and Ancestors in a Transnational World

This article explores the question of how transnational audiences experience anthropology exhibitions in particular, and the natural history museum overall. Of interest are the ways in which natural history museums reconcile anthropological notions of humanity's shared evolutionary history—in particular, African origins accounts—with visitors' complex cultural identities. Through case studies of British, American, and Kenyan museum audiences, this research probed the cultural preconceptions that museum visitors bring to the museum and use to interpret their evolutionary heritage. The research took special notice of audiences of African descent, and their experiences in origins exhibitions and the natural history museums that house them. The article aims to draw connections between natural history museums and the dynamic ways in which museum visitors make meaning. As museums play an increasing role in the transnational homogenization of cultures, human origins exhibitions are increasingly challenged to communicate an evolutionary prehistory that we collectively share, while validating the cultural histories that make us unique.     

Children's Museum Experiences: Identifying Powerful Mediators of Learning

This article reports on a study of young children and the nature of their learning through museum experiences. Environments such as museums are physical and social spaces where visitors encounter objects and ideas which they interpret through their own experiences, customs, beliefs, and values. The study was conducted in four different museum environments: a natural and social history museum, an art gallery, a science center, and a hybrid art/social history museum. The subjects were four‐ to seven‐year old children. At the conclusion of a ten‐week, multi‐visit museum program, interviews were conducted with children to probe the saliency of their experiences and the ways in which they came to understand the museums they visited. Emergent from this study, we address several findings that indicate that museum‐based exhibits and programmatic experiences embedded in the common and familiar socio‐cultural context of the child's world, such as play and story, provide greater impact and meaning than do museum exhibits and experiences that are decontexualized in nature.     

Zoo Exhibit Experiences and Visitors’ Affective Reactions: A Preliminary Study

The purpose of the present study was to explore the types of personal experiences that were related to zoo visitors’ empathic and affective reactions at an animal exhibit. Various studies have suggested the importance of emotional empathy in motivating concern for the biosphere and pro‐environmental behaviors. As such, identifying visitors’ personal experiences at an animal exhibit that may lead to empathic and affective reactions has a direct bearing on learning strategies at zoos, aquariums, and other nature‐based museums. Adult day‐visitors to a United States zoo were asked to provide written open‐ended comments describing any “extra special” experiences they had at an exhibit. These reported experiences were then found to be highly related to visitors’ quantitative ratings regarding their concern, empathy, and sense of connection with nature and wildlife. Preliminary findings are discussed while taking into consideration the additional research questions that remain involving visitors’ empathic reactions to zoo animals.     

Essentialism, adaptation and justice: Towards a new epistemology of museums

This article treats the prevalent confused mixture of utilitarian, art-and-knowledge-for-their-own-sake and ideological interpretations of the purpose of museums as a problem of epistemology, arguing that that key dimensions of museum knowledge (of objects, visitors, museums themselves, and of society) need to be integrated to achieve coherence. A new object-based, visitor-centred, storytelling epistemology is proposed. This would take an interdisciplinary approach and aim to unleash, rather than mute the real power of objects. It would address human destructiveness, as well as celebrating human creativity and the wonders of nature. It would respect the meaning-making practices of real, as opposed to idealized, imaginary visitors, and promote staff self-awareness in managing bureaucratic drift into introversion and avoidance of difficult issues. Incorporating a theory of justice, it would erode boundaries created by presentation traditions which, though marginal to object experiences, discriminate in favour of specific social groups—often groups with whom staff identify. Providing a museum service on a visibly fair basis is essential for museums to achieve intellectual coherence as well as societal support.     

‘The feeling of exclusion’: Young peoples' perceptions of art galleries

This article first looks at the relationship between museums and art galleries and their potential audiences and, in particular, the under-represented sector of young visitors. It examines the main findings from the limited research available on young visitors, and goes on to discuss theories delineating the differences between the cultures, identities and values of culture consumers and culture providers. The second part of the article looks at what specific museums have done towards being more inclusive in their appeal, and then reports the findings of a survey of young people in relation to New Zealand's Auckland Art Gallery. The survey found that young people's ideas of what constitutes modern, relevant art do not match standard art criteria, and that most exhibitions and marketing methods do not mesh with their worldview. The article concludes by using data from the survey to suggest ways of engaging more young people with public art galleries.     

Museums as Restorative Environments

Abstract Restorative environments possess a combination of attributes that facilitate recovery from mental fatigue. Most previous research in this regard has focused on natural environments, but this paper explores the extent to which museum environments also provide access to restorative experiences. Visitors (307 tourists and 274 local residents) to a history museum, an art museum, an aquarium, and a botanic garden completed a questionnaire regarding the restorative qualities and benefits of the environment they visited. The findings indicate that for some people, museums are at least as restorative as natural environments. The paper contributes to the development of a theoretical understanding of museums as restorative environments and provides insights into the factors that facilitate and enhance restorative experiences. Such experiences have the potential to contribute to visitors’ well‐being and satisfaction.     

Climate Change Education at Nature‐Based Museums

The status of climate change education at nature‐based museums (i.e., zoos, aquariums and nature centers) was examined, with a particular focus on centers participating in a National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI) leadership training program. Study 1 revealed that, relative to nature‐based museums that did not participate in the training, NNOCCI‐participating institutions provided resources for staff to work on the topic and professional development programs and were more likely than non‐participating museums to be comfortable with and provide climate change education programming. Study 2 confirms these results via visitor reports about the exhibits they observed. Study 2 also reveals that, relative to non‐visitors and visitors to non‐participating nature‐based museums, visitors to NNOCCI‐participating nature‐based museums were more knowledgeable about and concerned about climate change and ocean acidification, hopeful about their ability to talk about the topic, and likely to engage in climate change actions than those who did not visit these centers. Importantly, results from both studies indicate that nature‐based museums, especially NNOCCI participating museums, have an institutional culture supportive of climate science education and suggests that NNOCCI interpreter training programming facilitates this culture which in turn is reflected in visitor engagement.     

An Analysis of Differences Between Visitors at Natural History Museums and Science Centers

As museum staff search for ways to broaden their audience, creative collaborations are emerging among various institutions with the hope that visitors who typically visit science centers, for example, will venture over to their local natural history museum. Typically, front-end evaluation is used for understanding details about visitors in the context of a proposed exhibition. Front-end evaluation can also help collaborating museums understand the nuances among their visitors regarding demographics, attitudes, and preferences for interpretive strategies. Carefully articulating the characteristics of the actual audience, potential audience, and target audience will help exhibit developers fine-tune their exhibitions to meet the needs and expectations of a more diverse public. This article presents partial findings from a front-end evaluation that analyzed the differences between visitors to natural history museums and science centers.     

Improving the Museum Experiences of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Their Families: An Exploratory Examination of Their Motivations and Needs and Using Web‐based Resources to Meet Them

Through a partnership with a local school, the Smithsonian Institution and the Information Policy and Access Center at the University of Maryland conducted an exploratory study to examine the motivations and needs of families visiting museums with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). This study represents one of the first undertakings to study visitors with ASDs, especially children, through a primarily qualitative data collection. Interest‐driven enjoyment emerged as a primary motivation, though to relax and to socialize outside of the family boundaries were not ranked as important motives for visiting museums. Children, who were directly interviewed, gave positive assessments of their museum experiences, while parents commented that challenges, both museum‐ and family‐related (crowds, loud noise, not feeling welcome, and a child's unpredictable behavior) surfaced in public settings like museums. Parents desired a “typical family outing” with their ASDs child, stating that manageable and safe environments helped families experience a museum.     

Evaluation, Research and Communities of Practice: Program Evaluation in Museums

Museums present different contexts for learning, particularly when compared with places such as schooos, universities and libraries. They have been described as free-choice learning environments visited by a broad range of people. Museums have the opportunity to shape identities—through access to objects, knowledge and information visitors see themselves and their culture reflected in ways that encourage new connections, meaning making and learning. However, across the world museums are finding themselves competing with other leisure and learning experiences in an increasingly global world. The long history of audience research in the cultural sector demonstrates the interest museums have had in their visitors over time. This paper outlines the development of audience research in museums, the context within which it operates, and describes the processes of audience research through a series of case studies drawn from the work of the Australian Museum Audience Research Centre. It is argued that the shift in museums from mission-led program development to balancing content and audience needs through a transaction approach requires a broader research-focused agenda. While traditional ways of conducting evaluations are necessary and useful, to remain viable audience research needs to be more strategic, working across the sector in new ways and utilising new methods. How programs impact on users and facilitate learning about a wide range of key issues that museums are concerned with is a leadership role that audience research can take across both the cultural sector and other free-choice learning contexts. To achieve this, a communities of practice approach is suggested as a potential framework for audience research in the contemporary museum.     

The Interpretation of Measuring Instruments in Museums

Abstract Artifacts involving scientific or mathematical concepts, particularly measuring instruments, have received little study in museums. This article is a case study that analyzes the display and interpretation of navigational instruments and related astronomical instruments in history museums. Based on the study, the author offers observations and recommendations on how museums might better intellectually communicate to their visitors about scientific or mathematical instruments. This article suggests that the multidisciplinary perspective of historical archaeology provides a comprehensive, holistic context for exhibiting and interpreting measuring instruments.     

Motivational Factors and the Visitor Experience: A Comparison of Three Sites

Museums, art galleries, botanical gardens, national parks, science centers, zoos, aquaria and historic sites are important public learning institutions. The free‐choice learning offered in these settings is closely linked to visitors' intrinsic motivation, making it important to understand the motivational factors that impact on visitors' experiences. This paper presents data from a questionnaire administered to visitors at three sites: a museum, an art gallery, and an aquarium. Similarities and differences among the sites are reported in relation to visitors' expectations, perceptions of learning opportunities, engagement in motivated learning behaviors, and perceptions of the learning experience. The importance of learning to museum visitors and the unique opportunities and challenges of the museum in relation to other educational leisure settings are discussed. The authors argue that the study of motivational factors might contribute to the development of a common theoretical foundation for interpretation in museums and other informal learning settings.     

IPOP: A Theory of Experience Preference

The theory and practice of IPOP emerged from structured observations and interviews with visitors to the Smithsonian Institution museums in Washington, D.C. from the 1990s to the present—a dataset useful in constructing a long view. This research has had one overarching intention: to serve museum visitors better, that is, to provide visitors with experiences that are above average, special, significant, and memorable. In numerous studies and interviews during the last 16 years, visitors have repeatedly spoken about their reactions to Smithsonian museum exhibitions in four typologies distilling their primary interests: I = ideas, P = people, O = objects, and—as we were obliged to add at a later stage—a second P for “physical.” The evidence suggests that exhibitions that strongly appeal to all four visitor typologies will be highly successful with visitors.     

Making Meaning on the Mall: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival as a Constructivist Museum

George Hein, museum education theorist, asserts that there are five qualities a “constructivist exhibition” must have (1998, 35). The authors, assembling observations of visitor engagement and qualitative data from the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, compare the event to Hein's constructivist exhibition criteria, to assess whether the Festival allowed visitors to “make meaning,” and to see whether visitor meaning‐making meshed with the goals of the curators. The answers have the potential to help improve visitor experiences and learning outcomes at museums and other curated cultural events.     

Beyond the Blockbuster: Good Exhibitions in Small Packages

Many American and European art museums are now featuring small, highly-focused shows in their exhibition programs. In 1990, the Indianapolis Museum of Art organized an exhibition that reunited, for the first time in a century, the four landscape paintings created by neo-impressionist Georges Seurat during the last summer of his life. Using Seurat at Gravelines: The Last Landscapes as an example, this article addresses the advantages — for museums and their visitors — of the small temporary exhibition.