Category Archives: Museums

Where does science come from?

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As I work towards a coherent research question for my dissertation, I find myself challenging assumptions that I never dealt with before. One is that visitors trust the science that is being presented in museums. There is lots of talk about learning science, public understanding of science, public engagement, etc., but trust is frequently glossed over. When we ask someone what they learned from an exhibit, we don’t also ask them how reliable they feel the information is. Much like the various fields of science, there is an assumption that what is being presented is accurate and unbiased in the eyes of the visitor.

In accordance with this, it is also frequently assumed that visitors know the difference between good science, bad science, pseudo science, not science, science in fiction, and science fiction; and that this is reflected in their visitor experiences in science museums. Especially in the internet age, where anyone can freely and widely distribute their thoughts and opinions and agendas, how do people build their understanding of science, and how do these various avenues of information impact trust in science? Media sources have been exposed in scandals where false “science” was disseminated. Various groups deliberately distort information to suit their purposes. In this melee of information and misinformation, are science centers still viewed as reliable sources of science information by the public?

What’s the Bleeding Edge for Museums?

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Last week, I talked about our eye-tracking in the science center at the Museums and the Web 2013 conference, as part of a track on Evaluating the Museum. This was the first time I’d attended this conference, and it turned out to be very different from others I’d attended. This, I think, meant that eye-tracking was a little ahead of where the audience of the conference was in some ways and behind in others!

Many of the attendees seemed to be from the art museum world, which has some different and some similar issues to those of science centers – we each have our generally separate professional organizations (American Association of Museums) and (Association of Science and Technology Centers). In fact, the opening plenary speaker, Larry Fitzgerald, made the point that museums should be thinking of ways that they can distinguish themselves from formal schools. He suggested that a lot of the ways museums are currently trying to get visitors to “think” look very much like they ways people think in schools, rather than the ways people think “all the time.” He mentioned “discovery centers” (which I took to mean interactive science centers), as places that are already trying to leverage the ways people naturally think (hmm, free-choice learning much?).

The twitter reaction and tone of other presentations made me think that this was actually a relatively revolutionary idea for a lot of folks there. My sense is that probably that stems from a different institutional culture that prevents much of that, except for places like Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, where Nina Simon is re-vamping the place around participation of community members.

So, overall, eye-tracking and studying what our visitors do was also a fairly foreign concept; one tweet wondered whether a museum’s mission needed to be visitor-centric. Maybe museums that don’t have to rely on ticket sales can rest on that, but the conference was trying to push a bit that museums are changing, away from places where people come to find the answer, or the truth and instead to be places of participation. That means some museums may also be generally lagging the idea of getting funding to study visitors at all, let alone spending large amounts on “capital” equipment, and since eye-trackers are expensive technologies designed basically only for that purpose, it seemed just a little ahead of where some of the conference participants were. I’ll have to check back in a few years and see h0w things are changing. As we talked about in our lab meeting this morning, a lot of diversity work in STEM free-choice learning is happening not in academia, but in (science) museums. Maybe that will change in a few years, as well, as OSU continues to shape its Science and Mathematics Education faculty and graduate programs.

Fish Stick Boyfriend

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I’d like to introduce you to a type of Science Center visitor I call “Fish Stick Boyfriend.” Here’s a common demographic profile, based on my own experience:

-White

-Male

-30-35 years old

-Visiting with a female companion (and sometimes children)

The interaction generally follows a simple pattern. Fish Stick Boyfriend frowns and paces while his companion darts from exhibit to exhibit. I’m siphoning a tank, and she is too engaged with the surrounding interpretive content to notice I’m there. Fish Stick Boyfriend notices me, though. He wants to talk.

“So,” he says, pointing at an equally disinterested rockfish, “can you eat those? What do they taste like?”

He’s being sarcastic—at least that’s what he thinks he’s doing. Fortunately, I’ve seen many Fish Stick Boyfriends before, and I know what’s going on. I tell him what rockfish tastes like and where to get it. Then I tell him why it tastes the way it does, and how that relates to the animal’s life history. Then I show him an animal that tastes different, explain why, and tell him where he can go to buy it.

Fish Stick Boyfriend is now usually smiling and looking at some exhibits, and occasionally we actually start talking. His initial comment reveals some useful things:

1. He feels out of place

2. He’s familiar with fish as food

3. He wants to interact with somebody, but he chose an aquarist over a designated interpreter

On the exhibit floor, I’m “just a guy.” Visitors sometimes feel comfortable talking to me when they might avoid an interpretive volunteer or education staff member. Part of the reason may be that I’m usually facing the same direction they are—a small but significant proxemic distinction. I’m talking with them, rather than at them. I’m having a conversation, rather than giving a lecture. It’s not even much to do with what I say—the visitors’ perception makes all the difference.

When it comes to engaging the peripheral learners in a group, I’ve found that the most effective interpreters are often not interpreters at all. Fish Stick Boyfriend doesn’t think he likes Science Centers, but he’s comfortable talking to “the guy who cleans the tanks.” He sees me as a peripheral figure, too.

Over the past few years, I’ve developed a rough, conversational interpretive plan for just about every object in the Visitor Center. The octopus sculpture at the front desk can be used to talk about anatomy. Laura’s footprint decals can be used to talk about population genetics via variations in calcaneal pitch. Exhibits under construction can be used to talk about interpretation itself.

Whether you’re a trained interpreter or not, it’s important to recognize your relationship to the visitor experience. If you’re not perceived as a representative of the institution, you can use that as a position of power on behalf of the visitor. You’re “just a guy” or “just a girl,” changing a light fixture or measuring a table or feeding a frog or miming the destruction of an uncooperative video player. Some visitors may see you as the only approachable person in the building, and your response is crucial.

Fish Stick Boyfriend is bored, and only you can help him.

Good days and bad days for visitor data collection

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Awhile ago, I promised to share some of my experiences in collecting data on visitors’ exhibit use as part of this blog. Now that I’ve actually been back at it for the past few weeks, I thought it might be time to actually share what I’ve found. As it is winter here in the northern hemisphere, our weekend visitation to the Hatfield Visitor Center is generally pretty low. This means I have to time my data collection carefully if I don’t want to spend an entire day waiting for subjects and maybe only collect data on two people. That’s what happened on a Sunday last month; the weather on the coast was lovely, and visitation was minimal. I have been recently collecting data in our Rhythms of the Coastal Waters exhibit, which has additional data collection challenges in that it is basically the last thing people might see before they leave the center, it’s dim because it houses the projector-based Magic Planet, and there are no animals, unlike just about every other corner of the Visitor Center. So, I knocked off early and went to the beach. Then I definitely rescheduled another day I was going to collect data because it was a sunny weekend day at the coast.

On the other hand, on a recent Saturday we hosted our annual Fossil Fest. While visitation was down from previous years, only about 650 compared to 900, this was plenty for me, and I was able to collect data on 13 people between 11:30 and 3:30, despite an octopus feeding and a lecture by our special guest fossil expert. Considering data collection, including recruitment, consent, the experiment, and debrief probably runs 15 minutes, I thought that this was a big win. In addition, I only got one refusal from a group that said they were on their way out and didn’t have time. It’s amazing how much better things go if you a) lead with “I’m a student doing research,” b) mention “it will only take about 5-10 minutes”, and c) don’t record any video of them. I suspect it also helps that it’s not summer, as this crowd is more local and thus perhaps more invested in improving the center, whereas summer tourists might be visiting more for the experience, to say they’ve been there, as John Falk’s museum visitor “identity” or motivation research would suggest. This would seem to me like a motivation that would not make you all that eager to participate. Hm, sounds like a good research project to me!

Another reason I suspect things went well was that I am generally approaching only all-adult groups, and I only need one participant from each group, so someone can watch the kids if they get bored. I did have one grandma get interrupted a couple times, though, by her grandkids, but she was a trooper and shooed them away while she finished. When I was recording video and doing interviews about the Magic Planet, the younger kids in the group often got bored, which made recruiting families and getting good data somewhat difficult, though I didn’t have anyone quit early once they agreed to participate. Also, as opposed to prototyping our salmon forecasting exhibit, I wasn’t asking people to sit down at a computer and take a survey, which seemed to feel more like a test to some people. Or it could have been the exciting new technology I was using, the eye-tracker, that was appealing to some.

Interestingly, I also had a lot of folks observe their partners as the experiment happened, rather than wander off and meet up later, which happened more with the salmon exhibit prototyping, perhaps because there was not much to see if one person was using the exhibit. With the eye-tracking and the Magic Planet, it was still possible to view the images on the globe because it is such a large exhibit. Will we ever solve the mystery of what makes the perfect day for data collection? Probably not, but it does present a good opportunity for reflection on what did and didn’t seem to work to get the best sample of your visitorship. The cameras we’re installing are of course intended to shed some light on how representative these samples are.

What other influences have you seen that affect whether you have a successful or slow day collecting exhibit use data?

 

Unexpected but pleasant revelations: Brazilian museum learning research

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OK… I owe you all an update from my very productive Brazilian trip and conference presentations. All in all things went really well. All of my 4 presentations were  very well attended and people were not just amazed by the research potential of the Cyberlab but also excited about the possibilities of my research in Brazil. I spent just as much time answering questions as I spent actually presenting, which I think is a good indicator (and yes I answered lots of questions about “IRB” related stuff although not actually called RIB in Brazil).

I was extremely impressed with the level of research being done there. While doing literature reviews here I had a very hard time finding stuff online and having access to citations I knew existed. There is a serious problem of visibility for Brazilian publications not only outside the country’s realm but also within the national research groups doing this kind of research. Therefore, I had a very erroneous idea about the status of museum learning research in Brazilian settings. I really thought they were further behind than they really are. This first international workshop of research in museum education in Sao Paulo was not only crucial for me to be able to network and get involved with the group of museum learning researchers in Brazil but, more importantly,  it gave me a clear understanding of the historical development of museum studies in Brazil, their advancements, challenges and needs for future research (which will immensely influence decisions on my research questions).

Overall,  the status of current museum learning debate is very similar to what we experience here in the US. The same kinds of challenges were put into perspective during the event. There were robust discussions about the definition of learning, the learning theories influencing frameworks for research, where many people referred to the contextual model of learning and YES our  well debated “Vygotsky” came to surface in one of the sessions I participated – THANKS SHAWN for theory meetings! The role of the museum as a “non-formal” setting (as they called instead of informal) and the role of its educators was also largely debated. It was brought up the need for more partnerships between formal and “non-formal” institutions, form more research to identify Brazilian museum common and uncommon audiences and develop strategies to bring scarce audiences such as general family groups to the museum floor.

They also want to shy away from research that only incorporate cognitive aspects of learning to also include affective, aesthetic and other important aspects of cultural and social upbringing, which lead to conversations about the need for more studies on mediation processes and tools, reflecting on practice and inclusion research. I would say “inclusion” is the hot topic at the moment and I may even infer that they have done much more in terms of inclusion research and action than the US has. I was very impressed with the level of knowledge  and experience coming from all participating groups which composed a very diverse audience by the way. Participants included college professors and researchers, graduate students, museum administrators, staff and educators, school teachers, journalists involved with science communication, social inclusion related professionals and so on.

It was an incredibly rich and eye-opening experience for me, putting interdisciplinary initiatives into perspective and raising the issue to everyone participating that more conferences, workshops, and other events as such are in great need for the museum learning research community in Brazil, in order for them to develop better ways of communicating, exchanging efforts and making research results and methodologies available and visible to all community.

I was able to meet my co-advisor and network with many other international and national professionals and graduate students in the field, some who are excited to cooperate with my research and work as mediators when I am not physically there. I am now part of the “GEENF”  – the translation of the acronym stands for “Non-Formal Education and Science Divulgation Research Group”. It was created in 2002 and it is associated with the Science and Math Education Department at the University  of Sao Paulo (USP), partnering with many museums and research institutions, National and International. Here is a link for more information in you wish to adventure into portuguese – http://www.geenf.fe.usp.br/v2/.

It was just great for me to realize I can have a job back home when I graduate, specially when they need many more trained, knowledgable and experienced professionals in the field doing research, partnering with international institutions for cross-cultural research and replication of methodologies applied elsewhere and use of state-of- the-art technology.  Creating a partnership between Hatfield and my research site (as off now the Ubatuba Aquarium in Sao Paulo) is not too far in the horizon for me anymore and, if it gets out of paper successfully,  it has the potential to bring great benefits to both sides involved. I will be applying for some grants here soon, wish me luck!

Susan

Food for thought: Ethics of sharing video

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Question: should we make available some of the HMSC VC footage for viewing to anyone who wants to see it? I was thinking the other day about what footage we could share with the field at large, as sharing is part of our mandate in the grant. Would it be helpful, for instance, to be able to see what goes on in our center, and maybe play around with viewing our visitors if you were considering either:

a) being a visiting scholar and seeing what we can offer

b) installing such cameras in your center

c) just seeing what goes on in a science center?

Obviously this brings up ethical questions, but for example, the Milestone Systems folks who made the iPad app for their surveillance system do put the footage from their cameras inside and outside their office building out there for anyone with the app to access. Do they have signs telling people walking up to, or in and around, their building that that’s the case? I would guess not.

I don’t mean that we should share audio, just video, but our visitors will already presumably know they are being recorded. What other considerations come up if we share the live footage? Others won’t be able to record or download footage through the app.

What would your visitors think?

Right now, we can set up profiles for an unlimited number of people who contact us to access the footage with a username and password, but I’m talking about putting it out there for anyone to find. What are the advantages, other than being able to circumvent contacting us for the login info? Other possible disadvantages: bandwidth problems, as we’ve already been experiencing.

So, chew over this food for thought on this Christmas eve, and let us know what you think.