Considerable time and effort have been invested in understanding the motivations of museum visitors. Many investigators have sought to describe why people visit museums, resulting in a range of descriptive categorizations. Recently, investigators have begun to document the connections between visitors' entering motivations and their exiting learning. Doering and Pekarik have proposed starting with the idea that visitors are likely to enter a museum with an “entry narrative” (1996; see also Pekarik, Doering and Karns 1999). Doering and Pekarik argue that these entry narratives are likely to be
Federal support for museums through the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is based on the premise that museums are valuable community organizations providing rich opportunities for learning and civic engagement. Yet, until recently, there has been a paucity of systematic and evidence-based research on the public impact of museums. Therefore, since 2005, the IMLS Office of Museum Services has funded research projects under the auspices of the National Leadership Grant program. These grants support projects that ‘raise the bar’ in museum research and practice. Funded projects have