Understanding Visitor Engagement and Behaviors

ABSTRACT

The authors examine a model of visitor engagement that has been in development over the past 3 years at the Smithsonian Institution. A total of 390 visitors comprised the sample with a subsample (n = 102) of visitors who were tracked through an exhibit in the National Museum of Natural History. A 5-factor visitor preference model was tested (idea, people, object, physical, and reflective). A 4-factor model was retained, and factor scores were linked to tracking data. Results from the tracking model indicate that the preference scores are associated with and predictive of behavioral patterns within the exhibit.     

How to derive an advantage from the arbitrariness of the g-index

The definition of the g-index is as arbitrary as that of the h-index, because the threshold number g² of citations to the g most cited papers can be modified by a prefactor at one's discretion, thus taking into account more or less of the highly cited publications within a dataset. In a case study I investigate the citation records of 26 physicists and show that the prefactor influences the ranking in terms of the generalized g-index less than for the generalized h-index. I propose specifically a prefactor of 2 for the g-index, because then the resulting values are of the same order of magnitude as for the common h-index. In this way one can avoid the disadvantage of the original g-index, namely that the values are usually substantially larger than for the h-index and thus the precision problem is substantially larger; while the advantages of the g-index over the h-index are kept. Like for the generalized h-index, also for the generalized g-index different prefactors might be more useful for investigations which concentrate only on top scientists with high citation frequencies or on junior researchers with small numbers of citations.     

Waiting to Use a Symbol: The Effects of Delay on Children's Use of Models

To use a symbol to solve a problem, children must achieve representational insight; they must realize that the symbol stands for its referent. Moreover, they must keep this relation in mind as they attempt to use the symbol. The present studies investigated the achievement and maintenance of representational insight. 3-year-olds were asked to use a scale model of a room to find a toy hidden in the room. In Study 1a, children first watched as a small toy was hidden in the model. They then waited either 20 sec, 2 min, or 5 min before attempting to find a similar, larger toy that was hidden in the corresponding place in the room. All children experienced all delay intervals; three groups experienced the delays in different orders. There was a dramatic effect of delay order. The children who experienced the 20-sec delay on their first trial generally performed well throughout the 6 trials, but the children who experienced a 5-min delay first almost always failed to find the toy in the room, even on subsequent trials with shorter delays. Additional studies revealed that the negative effects of the initial long delay could be overcome by providing reminders of the model and its relevance (Studies 2 and 3) or by giving children prior experience in using the model (Study 4). The results indicate that keeping a symbol-referent relation in mind can be difficult for 3.0-year-old children. This research is discussed in terms of the importance of maintaining representational insight.     

The Developing Bilingual Brain: What Parents and Teachers Should Know and Do

The field of neuroscience is now providing research findings about how the bilingual brain functions that can be used to promote richer and more successful dual-language development. This article summarizes recent research, then provides practical applications for parents and teachers of emergent bilinguals. Key understandings about how the brain processes first and subsequent languages are translated into ways to enrich instruction and family-based language and literacy experiences.     

Personal and Interpersonal Motivation for Group Projects: Replications of an Attributional Analysis

We report the results of two replication studies using attribution theory to analyze personal and interpersonal motivation for collaborative projects. Undergraduate students responded to questionnaires containing hypothetical vignettes depicting success or failure outcomes due to ability or effort for dyads working on a group project. Dependent measures included emotions of shame, anger, pity, guilt, pride, and gratitude, as well as expectations for future success. Following the same procedures as the original study, we used doubly multivariate analyses to test 21 theoretical predictions from attribution theory for emotions and expectations for success. We replicated 17 of 21 results across all three studies and 20 of 21 results in the two replication studies. Results are discussed within the context of attribution theory.