Retrospective Pretests: Recent Use in Visitor Studies Research and Ways to Make Them More Informative

Abstract

Many visitor studies researchers use Retrospective Pretest (RPT) ­methods to document outcomes. Research literature compares the validity of RPT with traditional pretest-posttests. This article reviews visitor study and informal learning literature about how RPT has been used to evaluate programs in museums, aquariums, parks/recreation, zoos, and tourism. It furthers discussions about response shift bias, arguing that response shift can be either intentional or inadvertent. The type of response shift is important in determining when RPT should be used. We argue that RPT is the best choice when the program intends to shift participants’ understanding of constructs being measured, and when comparing intervention with non-intervention groups. The literature review found that RPT results usually focus on statistical significance testing. RPT data offer much more learning when the results are also examined from other perspectives. This article describes additional analyses of RPT data that can assess the applicability of programs to intended audiences.