Chicago Children's Museum (CCM) contracted with Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) to evaluate Skyline a National Science Foundation-funded exhibition designed to facilitate family learning of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) concepts relevant to building stable structures. RK&A conducted all three phases of evaluation for Skyline front-end, formative, and summative; select findings from the summative evaluation are presented here. Skyline's target audience is families with children between the ages of 5 and 10 years of age. RK&A conducted 100 observations of children in the
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Randi Korn & Associates, Inc.Chicago Children's Museum
This report presents findings from a summative evaluation of Go Figure! conducted by Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) for the Minnesota Children's Museum (MCM). Go Figure! is a traveling exhibition that is visiting both libraries and children's museums across the country. The exhibition was developed by the Minnesota Children's Museum in collaboration with the American Library Association through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and is intended to engage children two through seven years and their parents in exploring math through hands-on, book-based math
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Randi Korn & Associates, Inc.Minnesota Children's Museum
In 2004, WGBH received partial funding from the National Science Foundation to create Einstein's Big Idea, a two-hour docudrama on Einstein and the history of the formula E=mc2. Based on the book E=mc2, A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis, the program highlights the stories of those who helped develop the key concepts that make up the equation, with a particular focus on how Einstein pulled together these concepts to create E=mc2. Through these stories, Einstein's Big Idea focuses on four themes that served as learning goals for the project. The four themes are: (1
This report presents the findings from a front-end evaluation of 1, 2, 3 Ready? Set. Go!, conducted by Randi Korn & Associates (RK&A) for the Minnesota Children's Museum. 1, 2, 3 Ready? Set. Go! is a traveling exhibition that will visit both libraries and children's museums across the country. The exhibition is being developed by the Minnesota Children's Museum in collaboration with the American Library Association to engage children 2 through 7 years and their parents in exploring math through hands-on, book-based math activities.
The Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitude Scale measures student attitudes towards mathematics. The survey consists of 4 subscales, each designed to measure confidence, math as a male domain, teacher perception, and usefulness.
The Attitudes Toward Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) is a 40 question, 4-factor survey designed to measure high school and college students’ attitudes toward mathematics. Unlike other math assessments, the ATMI was designed to be brief while also capturing multiple factors that contribute to one’s attitude about math.
The tool was created by 4H Nebraska to measure students’ (7-10th graders ) learning and attitudes towards science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The tool also assesses students’ attitude about GPS (Global Positioning Systems) and GIS (Geographical Imaging Systems).
The Science Museum of Minnesota surveyed 16 museum visitors after they participated in the Exploring Measurement: Ruler Activity at NanoDays. This formative testing of the activity assessed the activity’s ability to convey the size of a nanometer, and that scientists need to use special tools when working at the nanoscale.
The Science Museum of Minnesota conducted the StretchAbility program on January 25th, and February 1st, 2010, and the Children’s Museum of Houston conducted the program on November 10th, 14th, and 25th, 2009. A total of 20 paired adult and child groups provided feedback through a survey designed to measure their engagement with and comprehension of the activity. After the activity, evaluators targeted participating children 8 or younger who were verbal for the interview, and gave a survey to the child’s parent to complete. Paired surveys were used due to the lower verbal nature of the younger
The second round of NISE Network Regional workshops were held during the winter of 2009 at the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS), The Franklin Institute (TFI), and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History (FW). The regional workshops were developed to address five goals. Formative evaluation was carried out to measure the success in meeting these goals. The evaluation was carried out using a mixed-methods design. Data collection methods included 1) partner pre-survey, 2) workshop observations, 3) partner post-workshop survey, 4) partner resource survey, 5) NISE Net staff post-workshop survey
A series of interview studies was conducted to determine how museum visitors interpret scale ladders that focus on the nanoscale. These studies look at different versions of an example scale ladder in order to: a.) Iteratively develop a scale ladder that may be used by other informal science institutions. b.) Formulate guidelines to inform the design and use of other scale ladders. Interview questions used for studies 1-3 are included in the appendix of this report.
This report documents a study conducted at the Exploratorium to characterize how visitors depict the concept of small. The study looks at visitors’ drawings in order to inform the design of diagrams, animations and other visualizations that help the public visualize and learn about the nanoscale in informal learning environments.