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.     

Stay Behind the Yellow Line: Young Children Constructing Knowledge from an Art Exhibition

Studies exploring very young children visiting museums and art galleries are few. The majority of research about museum and gallery visitors explores family group interactions. This paper examines the findings of a study involving three‐ and four‐year‐old children visiting an art exhibition in a national museum on more than one occasion. The children's construction of knowledge about being a museum visitor and exhibitor indicates their ability to develop an appreciation of art and an understanding of the purposes of museums and art galleries.     

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.     

Gallery One at the Cleveland Museum of Art

How can art museums use interpretive technology to engage visitors actively in new kinds of experiences with works of art? What are the best strategies for integrating technology into the visitor experience? In 2012, the Cleveland Museum of Art responded with Gallery One, an interactive art gallery that opened to stakeholders on December 12, and went through a six‐week testing period before its public opening on January 21, 2013. Gallery One drew from extensive audience research and was part of a major building and renovation project in which CMA reinstalled and reinterpreted the entire permanent collection in new and renovated gallery spaces. The end result was an innovative and robust blend of art, technology, design, and a unique user experience that emerged through the collaboration of staff across the museum and with outside consultants.     

The Museum Experience: Mapping the Experience of Fine Art

How do visitors to fine art museums experience exhibitions? Can we classify their experiences? What are the factors that drive different types of visitor experience? We set out to answer these questions by analyzing from sociological, psychological, physiological, and behavioral perspectives the responses of 576 visitors to a special exhibition 11: 1 (+ 3) = Eleven Collections for One Museum mounted at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland, from June to August 2009. Our five‐year research project, eMotion: Mapping the Museum Experience, interpreted computer‐modeled movement‐tracking and physiological maps of the visitors in complement with entrance and exit surveys. We tested individual aspects of the visitor, such as her or his expectations of the exhibition prior to seeing it; his or her socio‐demographic characteristics; her or his affinity for art, mood just before and receptivity just after the visit; and spatial, individual, and group‐related behavior patterns. Our study breaks down three types of exhibition experience that we call “the contemplative,” “the enthusing,” and “the social experience.” The results yield new information about aesthetic arousal, cognitive reaction, patterns of social behavior, and the diverse elements of the exhibition experience.     

Challenging the Context: Perception,Polity, and Power

The Art Institute of Chicago opened its new Kraft General Foods Education Center in 1992. Its inaugural gallery exhibition, ART INSIDE OUT: Exploring Art and Culture Through Time, was designed to help visitors explore the historical and cultural context of twelve works of art. “Contextual areas” are provided for six of them. They employ models, replicas, artwork, art materials and tools as well as interpretive panels and interactive computer installations to enable visitors to fully comprehend and appreciate the immediate world from which each work emerged. the six other works are contextualized by interactive computer installations.     

‘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.     

In Byzantium1

During Spring 1997 we experimented with a research method combining quantitative and qualitative approaches to documenting visitor experiences in The Glory of Byzantium, a special exhibition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition to using standard demographic and behavior surveys, a small team of researchers and volunteers gathered information, compared experiences, and summarized their observations of people in the exhibition. Each team member conducted about a dozen structured conversations with visitors as they left the exhibition. Subsequently the team met as an informal focus group to describe their experiences. We found that many museum users arrived with relevant experiences and high expectations for this somewhat specialized exhibition; we also found users whose approach to the exhibition was less well‐informed, but whose enthusiasm and trust for the museum experience moved them to attend with satisfaction. We believe that such team approaches to research might well be used as a regular part of museum work as we search for answers to the many elusive questions about museum use.     

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.     

The Museum Visit: It’s an Experience,Not a Lesson

Abstract Museums offer visitors direct experiences—such as visual experiences—that are not available elsewhere in daily life. Learning through verbal information is part of it, yet the aesthetic experience is always outside of the “right‐answer paradigm.” Cognitive development occurs when perceptions inform thinking, thoughts are expressed in language, and expressed thoughts invite reconsideration of the material at hand. Both science and art require the development of these skills. Science and art museum educators can and should advocate the value of looking, thinking, wondering about complexity, and discussing the results.     

Analysis of a natural history exhibit: Are Dioramas the answer?

The results of this study indicated that small but significant amounts of knowledge gain did occur upon visiting the Living Land Living Sea gallery, that attitudinal change was not measured, and that exhibit type clearly affects attracting power and holding power.It is only fair to say that the results have left the RBCM staff with mixed reactions. Knowledge gain did occur, but still the majority of intended messages were not communicated. Attitudinal change did not occur, yet this was a stated museum goal. Does this mean the gallery has failed? The attracting power and holding power values for the gallery seemed low. Visitor flow did not follow the designed pattern, nor did visitors stay in the gallery for the intended period of time, whilst key exhibits did not receive the necessary attention, and visitors were attracted to and held at certain exhibits for other than the intended purpose. Are these matters of a serious enough nature to be of concern, or does the overwhelming positive enjoyment reaction outweigh the fact that the visitor did not view the gallery in the manner or sequence intended?Is the Living Land Living Sea gallery a success or not? Are dioramas the answer? These questions demand that the exhibits be studied both from the museological perspective and from that of the visitor. In relation to this gallery, the visitor would vote an overwhelming ‘yes’, but we are fearful that if one is being honest, the museologist must answer ‘no’.One surprising result of this study is that those exhibits judged to be the most successful in behavioural terms, i.e. the larger ‘concrete’ exhibits, were not the most successful in educational terms. The negative relationship between knowledge gain and minimum viewing time, and the implied negative relationship between knowledge gain and Concrete Index scores, leads us to conclude that dioramas are not the best vehicle for communicating ideas. This finding reinforces the concept that large diorama-type exhibits be used to ‘wow’ visitors, but if we want to teach them anything, we should probably go for the small exhibit whose message can be gleaned in a relatively short time.All museums, not just the RBCM, need to re-examine their motives for public exhibits. As ‘tourists’ become increasingly our most important market (since visitation seems to be an indicator of success), more and more museums are contemplating the use of large dioramas to attract visitors. As these data indicated, dioramas are not the answer to all our problems and thus should be used carefully and cautiously.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

All the (Natural) World's a Stage: Museum Theater as an Educational Tool

This paper describes a range of theatrical events developed by the Education Unit of the Natural History Museum, London. Theater is used to target non‐traditional audiences, thereby helping meet the museum's educational mandate in innovative ways. The museum's galleries have recently hosted a variety of characters, traditional and contemporary, historical and fictional, in a number of dramatic formats: ensemble pieces, role‐playing, puppetry, dance, mime, and acrobatics. The examples described here provide the occasion for exploring related issues, such as the museum's overall objectives for the program, the responses of visitors, and the spatial and temporal limitations to the design process.     

Visitor Comments as Dialogue

Museum use is a process of ideological negotiation, and thus museum users are active agents, not empty vessels waiting to be filled with curatorial narrative. Ensuing dialogues argue over trivia as well as important ethical issues. Discussants take up topics that range over specific public programs, the object maker's motivations and intentions, the choice of a subject, the phrasing of a caption, or the selection of objects on display. These discussions are held in hushed conversations in crowded galleries, in casual conversations within museum hallways, or with animated gestures on the front steps. In the course of this dialogic social practice, each participant's cultural repertoire is enhanced and grows. Every dialogic event is part of a socio‐cultural continuum that will engender other events, with other participants. The comments made by visitors in a visitor comment book are therefore instances of the specificities and the universality of that discussion.     

Visitors' Long‐term Memories of World Expositions

This article reports on the outcomes of a study that investigated the nature and character of visitors' long‐term memories associated with their experiences at large‐scale exhibitions. The study investigated themes that characterized visitors' memories of two global exhibitions: World Expo 86, hosted in Vancouver, Canada in 1986; and World Expo 88, hosted in Brisbane, Australia in 1988. There are a few studies in the literature that have considered long‐term memories associated with visits to informal learning environments, but no studies to date that have considered the impact and long‐term memories associated with large‐scale exhibitions such as world expositions. This study probed the long‐term memories of a total of 50 visitors who attended either Expo 86 or Expo 88, through in‐depth face‐to‐face interviews. Analysis of the interview data suggests that the key themes in memories of these events center on the social dimensions of visitors' experiences, visitors' recalled agendas at the time of the experience, and the socio‐cultural identities of visitors at the time of the experience.