Visitor Learning Research Articles

The Innovative Design of Museum Education System in China based on Visitor Perception Analysis

ABSTRACT The evolution of museums has transitioned from being centered on “objects” to “people,” emphasizing the human experience as pivotal in museum education development. According to the cognitive characteristics and factors of museum visitors, this paper explores the key factors influencing visitor perception through quantitative and qualitative user studies. Subsequently, an innovative museum education system is devised, integrating robotics and mobile applications to provide guidance and companionship to visitors. Finally, the evaluation at the Zhejiang Provincial Museum validates the system’s efficacy in enhancing educational experiences. This study aims to analyze the key factors affecting perception and design an innovative system to optimize visitor learning experiences and learning outcomes, thereby enhancing the educational impact of Chinese museums and contributing to the revitalization of traditional culture.

The Role of Museum Design in Enhancing Visitor Learning: A Critical Review

This study examines the impact of museum design on knowledge acquisition through a comprehensive literature review. By analyzing existing research on museum architecture, exhibit layout, and visitor engagement, the study explores how design elements such as spatial organization, lighting, and interactive displays influence learning outcomes. The literature review reveals key insights into the ways museum environments shape cognitive processes and retention of information. Findings suggest that well-designed museums significantly enhance visitor engagement and facilitate deeper understanding. This review highlights existing trends and identifies gaps in the current research, providing a foundation for future empirical studies on the relationship between museum design and knowledge transfer

Towards a climate of hope: learning in response to frames at an innovative museum exhibit

As trusted public institutions, museums could offer crucial opportunities for climate learning. Yet, empirical research on effective approaches is limited. One potential pathway is through strategic framing, given that much research in climate communication suggests the value of specific frames. We developed an innovative climate exhibit, A Climate of Hope (ACOH), guided by five strategic frames: hope, gain, local, community, and playful. To investigate visitor learning at a prototype of ACOH, we collected data from 31 groups as they interacted with a prototype of ACOH while wearing audio recorders. Integrating theories of knowledge and discourse, we investigated learners’ use of resources at ACOH through qualitative discourse analysis and mixed-methods analysis. We found that learners brought a diverse array of resources, some of which were related to incoming views of climate change. We interpret our results as speaking to the potential of framing climate messages through a gain frame. We provide implications for educational practice around climate change in informal spaces.

Floral scent changes in response to pollen removal are rare in buzz-pollinated Solanum

Main conclusionOne of seven Solanum taxa studied displayed associations between pollen presence and floral scent composition and volume, suggesting buzz-pollinated plants rarely use scent as an honest cue for foraging pollinators.Floral scent influences the recruitment, learning, and behaviour of floral visitors. Variation in floral scent can provide information on the amount of reward available or whether a flower has been visited recently and may be particularly important in species with visually concealed rewards. In many buzz-pollinated flowers, tubular anthers opening via small apical pores (poricidal anthers) visually conceal pollen and appear similar regardless of pollen quantity within the anther. We investigated whether pollen removal changes floral scent composition and emission rate in seven taxa of buzz-pollinated Solanum (Solanaceae). We found that pollen removal reduced both the overall emission of floral scent and the emission of specific compounds (linalool and farnesol) in S. lumholtzianum. Our findings suggest that in six out of seven buzz-pollinated taxa studied here, floral scent could not be used as a signal by visitors as it does not contain information on pollen availability.

Virtual reality and museum tourism in the anchoring paradigm

ABSTRACT The present research designed a series of two studies and examined the impacts of the additional VR tour on museum tourist behaviour, learning and satisfaction, considering tourists’ belief of technology in the anchoring paradigm. It finds that museum tourists with an additional VR tour of cultural exhibitions spend less time and show a targeted temporal–spatial pattern in the on-site visit than those without VR. The findings indicated that participants who read the poster about VR are advanced and helpful in museum visits and reported higher learning and satisfaction compared with those who did not read the poster, no matter whether they took the additional VR tour or not. This finding suggests that external anchors significantly influence and even bias people’s judgements in visitor learning and satisfaction with their visit to cultural exhibitions. This study is among the first to look into the human-technology relationship, particularly the sentiment of ‘technological optimism’ in the tourism context. Using the anchoring theory, this study investigates museum tourists’ cognitive mechanism involving their belief in technology. It is also innovative in employing interdisciplinary methods, such as spatial-temporal analysis, in-depth interviews, observations and experiments.

Inventarisasi Pohon Sendang Tirto Gumitir Bagi Masyarakat Desa Sidomulyo

Sendang Tirto Gumitir in Sidomulyo Village has a clear spring. The Sendang location is in the middle of a forest area. Around Sendang, there are many large-diameter trees with diverse and unique shapes and old age. The potential of Sendang Tirto Gumitir as educational tourism in its tree collection has not been implemented by tourism managers and village governments. Many villagers do not know the types and characteristics of trees in the Sendang area. The solution to overcome this problem is with manual and digital inventory activities of Sendang Tirto Gumitir. The results of the inventory of 23 trees in Sendang Tirto Gumitir obtained eight types of trees with the largest diameter, namely banyan trees (233 cm). Descriptions of information are on the village website, and information boards are attached to trees. The tree information board is integrated into the QR-Code. It is scanned with a mobile phone and contained tree information on the village website. Based on the educational side, QR-Code is useful in providing learning for visitors, the community, and students to gain access to tree information around Sendang Tirto Gumitir. The existence of tree inventory and digitization of information related to tree inventory is the first step for the village government to develop the Sendang Tirto Gumitir tourist attraction. Therefore, further activities recommended to expand the tree inventory area in Sendang Tirto Gumitir and add a description of the characteristics of tree species.

정의롭고 윤리적인 관광을 향한 타짐 자말(Tazim Jamal)의 연구 세계

This article explores the research world of Tazim Jamal, a prominent scholar in contemporary tourism studies, as part of the special issue of the Journal of Tourism Science titled ‘Contemporary Leisure and Tourism Researchers and Research’. Drawing from an interview with Jamal and reviews of her research, this article delineates Jamal's research background, interests, and primary research focus. Additionally, it includes Jamal's insights directed towards South Korean tourism research and researchers. Jamal recognized the significance of socio-cultural and environmental impacts caused by tourism and dedicated her work to addressing these issues. Her early research concentrated on collaborative planning and community participation, later broadening to encompass sustainable tourism, just and ethical tourism, and the concept of 'good tourism'. Jamal proposed five principles for justice and ethics in tourism: equity and justice; diversity and recognition; responsibility and care; sustainability and conservation; and democracy and governance. She underscored the need for future tourism studies to continue interdisciplinary research, employ diverse research paradigms and methodologies, share extensive knowledge, and engage in discourse with scholars from the Global South and non-Western countries. Furthermore, in a written message to Korean academics, Jamal expressed hope that addressing critical issues like climate change, community well-being, cultural and heritage conservation, and enhancing cultural exchange and visitor learning can be achieved through thoughtful, fair, and responsible tourism. It is hoped that this article well describes Jamal's research world and philosophy on justice and ethics in tourism.

Environmental interpretation and socio-cognitive mindfulness: A literature review

Visitors to environmental and heritage sites can have heightened experiences through effective interpretation. Thus, providing effective environmental and heritage interpretation is important for visitors who explore those sites. In parks, recreation, and tourism research, the addition of socio-cognitive mindfulness into interpretation methods is a technique that can be used to improve interpretation experiences. This review sought to summarize what is known from the literature in this field about applying socio-cognitive mindfulness in interpretation settings as well as how it can be applied effectively. Themes that emerged from this review of 17 analyzed sources were that socio-cognitive mindfulness in interpretive settings can lead to learning experiences and studies that have tested Moscardo's conceptual framework regarding mindfulness in interpretive settings have provided evidence for how mindful interpretive experiences can be implemented (i.e., use of multisensory media, novelty, variety, questions, and visitor control can facilitate mindfulness in interpretive settings). Mindful interpretation can be used to enhance sustainability education in interpretive settings and future research directions for socio-cognitive mindful interpretive research is also discussed. Management implicationsA literature review was completed about socio-cognitive mindfulness applications in environmental interpretation settings. Findings from this review indicated that mindful interpretive experiences serve to enhance visitor learning experiences. Socio-cognitive mindful interpretive experiences can be facilitated by applying concepts from Moscardo's (1996, 1999) framework. Providing novelty, variety, elements of visitor control, or through the use of multisensory media or questions can serve to provide mindful interpretive experiences. Furthermore, from this review, mindful interpretation can be used to promote sustainability education by applying mindful interpretive techniques to environmental interpretation settings. This can be a useful application of mindfulness in such settings.

Design for Learning in Museums: A Professional Development Exercise

The paper discusses the role of educational research and reflective practice in the design of a learning methodology in a museum education context. Educational research and reflective practice are addressed for their role in visitor-centred experiences and in the professional development of museum educators through the case of the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci. The paper first examines the research questions by looking into the work of the Education Department of the Museum in order to contextualize and justify certain choices and directions in the development of visitor learning and experience. It then analyses one of the education projects of the Museum, “Future Inventors”, as the context for the learning design and reflective practice processes in order to question traditional epistemological stances in visitor learning and to stress the importance of professional development for museum educators to enrich their knowledge in the field and the competences necessary to stand as the audience advocates within the museum institution.

Does Values-Based Interpretation Make a Difference? Testing Impacts on Visitors’ Environmental Learning and Reported Adoption of Environmentally Responsible Behaviors

This experimental field study tests the impact of values-based interpretive materials on zoo/aquarium visitors’ engagement, learning and self-reported adoption of environmentally responsible behaviors after their visit. Participants were randomly assigned to a control group (who experienced a normal visit) or a treatment group (who received additional values-based interpretive materials). A total of 719 participants in North America and 455 in Australia completed two surveys – one immediately after their visit and one four weeks later. Three hypotheses were supported by the data: Providing values-based interpretive materials influences visitors’ engagement during their visit; improves visitor learning; and increases visitors’ adoption of environmentally responsible behaviors. A fourth hypothesis was partially supported: Providing values-based interpretive materials is most beneficial for those who prioritize values other than self-transcendence. It is concluded that values-based interpretation can broaden the reach of zoos beyond traditional audiences and widen their impact on visitor uptake of environmental behavior.

Natural History Mystery: Immersing Families in a Problem-Solving Game Using Natural History Exhibits

There is a need for a better public understanding of evolutionary relatedness including its relevance to socio-scientific issues such as conservation and health. As venues that play an important role in communicating about evolution, natural history museums have an opportunity to explore novel means of enhancing visitor learning in this area. We describe the design, testing, modification, and evaluation of an immersive, problem-solving educational game on the topic of evolution using specimens on display in a natural history museum. Natural History Mystery invites small teams of players to solve a series of puzzles to identify the source of a zoonotic disease. In the process, they use existing exhibits and supporting game components to learn about shared characters, common ancestry, and relatedness. The game was iteratively designed through multiple rounds of trial testing with families and other groups. A summative assessment performed by an external evaluator concluded that, through the game, players had fun, explored the museum in new ways, and felt they learned and developed new skills. The evaluation found that participants learned about evolutionary relationships and made connections between evolution and medical applications. We share details about game/puzzle design and development along with lessons learned, providing a model for other institutions to create their own themed puzzle-hunt game customized to their site.

Creating Middle Ground: Transforming Outdoor Informal Learning Landscapes

AbstractIn this article, we offer a model for shifting museums away from elitism and exclusion towards inclusion and community engagement. Rather than require all learners to come to the museum, we propose installing science exhibitions and pop‐ups in urban neighborhoods. The Transforming Informal Learning Landscapes (TILL) model integrates three key components—contextually‐relevant science, learning‐centered placemaking, and content‐humanizing facilitation—to change outdoor public spaces from hallways to living rooms, places people would want to spend time, socialize and learn science. We briefly present the model and then describe our partnership that used TILL to produce and facilitate Middle Ground, a free exhibition on the social science of biases, stereotyping and prosocial behavior in a diverse outdoor urban setting. The article presents evidence of the success of Middle Ground in support of the effectiveness of the TILL model. A companion research article describes a quasi‐experimental study of the effect of facilitation on visitor learning at Middle Ground.

Exploring how high school students experience intrinsically motivating elements in a science communication lecture on research in chemistry

ABSTRACT Motivation is a key aspect of learning, and the degree of motivation is primarily dependent on the environment in which the learning process takes place. This article employs a museum-based framework to study the design of intrinsically motivating science communication lectures. The analysis was conducted based on the motivational components of the Selinda Model of Visitor Learning (SMVL) proposed by Perry [Perry, D. L. (2012). What makes learning fun?: Principles for the design of intrinsically motivating museum exhibits. Altamira Press]. Using qualitative and quantitative analytical techniques, this study examines the experience of high school students regarding intrinsically motivating elements during their participation in science communication lectures on Chemistry research in Brazil. Two hundred and fifty-eight high school students from six public schools took part in this study, which was primarily based on their visit to a public university. The results obtained showed that the students had a positive perception about the factors that make a lecture intrinsically rewarding and helped identify the specific elements that enhanced students’ motivation. Considering that this is the first attempt to apply the SMVL framework in Brazil, the findings suggest that interactive lectures are an important strategic tool that researchers can use to communicate science and their scientific research to the people outside the confines of the university environment and beyond the exchanges that occur between their peers.

Narratives Display at Museum Pusaka, Taman Mini Indonesia Indah: Between Discursive and Immersive Displays

The research discussed how museums could promote holistic learning, including cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning, in a fun and effective way through narratives. By using narratives displayed in museums, visitors could learn and receive information more effectively. However, Indonesian museums, including Museum Pusaka, were still underestimated and did not clearly understand the power of narrative to enhance visitor learning with their priceless collection and strategic location. The research aimed to discuss further the use of narratives displayed in Museum Pusaka as a study case to achieve its primary mission to educate and learn through the qualitative method with qualitative content analysis method, including data collection, descriptive data analysis, design statement, and design proposal. The research results indicate that in a narrative display with a beginning, middle, and end in five sequences and a reverse plot. It begins with the mystical image of Kris in today’s society, continues to the past where Kris begins and history of Kris, the function of Kris and glory era of Kris, to the end and conclusion of the narratives, which show the shift of Kris as collection, study objects, and to complete traditional clothes rather than as weapons. The five masterpieces Kris and their story will be part of this narrative. Through a well-designed narrative display, museum visitors will learn something from their visit, cognitively and affectively.

Facilitators Improve the Learning Experience of Visitors to a Science Centre

We studied how interactions with interpretative science centre staff impacts the learning behaviours and engagement levels of visitors who engage with exhibits at Science North (Sudbury, Canada). This study uses the Visitor-Based Learning Framework. The tool consists of seven discrete learning-associated behaviours that visitors show when engaging with exhibits, which are grouped into three categories of engagement: Initiation, Transition, and Breakthrough. These categories reflect increasing levels of engagement and depth of the learning experience. We studied forty-seven Science North exhibits, and 4,835 visitors to analyse the impact of unstructured facilitation in a naturalistic setting. We compared visitor Engagement Levels with and without a facilitator present. We determined that the presence of staff has a statistically significant impact on the percentage of visitors that engage in Breakthrough behaviours. When a facilitator is present, more visitors reach the Breakthrough Level of Engagement (p < 0.001). In the second phase of the study, we explored what facilitators do and say through thematic analysis to uncover common patterns of facilitator actions and comments. Our findings showed that facilitators employed strategies and methods that can be grouped in four categories or Facilitation Dimensions: Comfort, Information, Reflection, and Exhibit Use. These dimensions encompass different strategies and techniques of facilitation, that are used in a variety of situations and sequences. Our study goes beyond anecdotal evidence to show that staff-visitor interactions have a positive impact on visitor engagement with exhibits and therefore, potentially on visitor learning from exhibits. Our findings can be used to inform not only training programs but also managerial decisions and considerations around resource allocation. We suggest that facilitators are a fundamental asset for institutions that prioritize visitor engagement, one that should be given top priority when considering areas for investing.

Measurement of Science Museum Visitors’ Emotional Experiences at Exhibits Designed to Encourage Productive Struggle

AbstractThis study measured science museum visitors’ emotional experiences at exhibits designed to encourage productive struggle (PS), an emotional experience where visitors productively persist through challenge. The study included 105 youth visitors ages 10–17 who interacted with one of three science exhibits designed to promote PS. Emotion was measured using a convergent mixed‐methods design, including self‐report ratings of the extent to which 13 emotions were experienced, coupled with narrative data generated through guided recall activities. Results indicated that most visitors experienced the constellation of emotions characteristic of PS, and that experiences of PS took on varied forms. These findings validated and enriched the emotional components expected to comprise PS, and suggested that the construct of PS can meaningfully characterize patterns of effortful engagement. Attending to visitors’ emotional meaning‐making, particularly through the productive resolution of challenge, can inform the purposeful design of exhibits that harness emotions to deepen visitor learning and engagement.

Exploring the Impact of Educational Quizzes and Stamp Collecting Trails on Zoo Visitor Learning and Exhibit Observation

Visitors observe diverse animals during zoo visits and learn more about animals by reading information boards that provide conservation education on animal behavior and habitats. This study revealed differences in effects between reading and understanding during stamp collection and a quiz game focused on “animal observations” and “perception of information boards”. Stamp collection and the quiz game were both effective for reading and observing. These were interesting techniques for learning about various captive species. The quiz game that urged observing target species and reading information boards was found to be a more effective tool to learn about the ecology and conservation of captive species.

Methodological Bricolage and COVID-19: An Illustration From Innovative, Novel, and Adaptive Environmental Behavior Change Research

This article explores innovative and novel research methods and adaptive approaches during the COVID-19 pandemic to examine visitor learning and proenvironmental behavior. We present a mixed methods study that used a methodological bricolage approach to field-based data collection. The pandemic limited our ability to carry out the original study design. Quickly pivoting, the study was adapted to an explanatory sequential design with a survey, an interpretive video, naturalistic observations, personal meaning maps, interviews and a new method: comprehension assessments. This resulted in data collection that maintained trustworthiness and rigor, while remaining flexible to changing protocols. This article contributes to the field of mixed methods research by demonstrating the application of methodological bricolage in visitor research during catastrophic social change.

Differences in forum communication of residents and visitors in MOOCS

Facilitation of social interactions in Massive Open Online Courses can benefit from conceptualizing forum sub-populations through a networked lens. Such a lens implies that forum interactions represent a network of learners with heterogeneous levels of commitment to forum activity. A networked lens helps capture forum communities, so-called forum residents, as well as the rest of the crowd, also known as forum visitors. The current study empirically demonstrates the differences between these forum sub-populations. Building on a large dataset of manually labelled discussion threads in four edX MOOCs, our findings uncover two distinct patterns in the communication of posters with different length of forum commitment. As the courses progressed, all types of communication decreased for forum visitors, but both socio-cognitive and informational queries increased for forum residents. We find that the communication dynamics of committed forum posters cannot be observed when the entire forum population is examined in its entirety. Further, the study profiles learners around discussion type sequences. We show that communication topics of forum visitors appear narrow and topical when compared to the diversity of topics by resident posters. This paper offers a foundation towards the scaling of social teaching practices for personalised learning of both residents and visitors as well as community development in massive open online courses.

Situated Tangible Gamification of Heritage for Supporting Collaborative Learning of Young Museum Visitors

Museums offer an ideal environment for informal cultural learning on heritage artifacts, where visitors get engaged in learning due to an intrinsic motivation. Sharing the museum space among visitors allows for collective learning experiences and socializing with each other. Museums aim to design and deploy Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) in order to embrace the physical materialities of artifacts in the visiting experience. TUIs are believed to be more collaborative, attract more visitors, and persuade them to explore further. Cultural learning on heritage artifacts is particularly meaningful from the early age when opinions and attitudes are shaped. Museums accordingly follow a gamification approach (i.e., using game elements in a non-game context) to provide a collaborative and entertaining learning experience to young visitors. In this study, we investigate the implications of merging these two approaches in order to take advantage of the qualities of both TUIs and gamification in an educational museum context. Accordingly, we present TouchTomb and its evaluation in a real-world museum environment. TouchTomb is a situated tangible gamification installation that aims to enhance informal cultural learning for young visitors and to foster engagement and collaboration among them. The basis of the installation is a shared progress bar and three games with different spatial configurations, embedded into a custom fabricated replica of an original ancient Egyptian tomb-chapel wall on a 1:1 scale. Our field study involved 14 school visits with a total number of 190 school pupils (from 10 to 14 years old). We deployed a mixed-method evaluation to investigate how such a tangible gamification approach entertains and educates 15 pupils collectively for a maximum of 15 minutes, including the evaluation procedures. We particularly investigated how the different spatial configurations of the game setups influenced the stages of pupils’ cultural learning, and the levels of engagement and collaboration among them. We conclude the article by discussing the qualities of tangible gamification and its role in facilitating cultural learning. For instance, cultural learning is enhanced by situating heritage artifacts in the experience, and embedding learning in the reward system. Engagement and collaboration among visitors are fostered by creating a sense of ownership and designing a diversity of goals.