This article addresses some of the challenges faced when attempting to evaluate the long-term impact of informal science learning interventions. To contribute to the methodological development of informal science learning research, we critically examine (Falk and Needham (2011) Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 48: 1–12.) study of the California Science Center's long-term impact on the Los Angeles population's understanding, attitude and interest in science. This study has been put forward as a good model of long-term impact evaluation for other researchers and informal science learning
Educators have been increasingly interested in teaching mathematics in informal settings. However, there is little research on the actual learning outcomes of out-of-school mathematics instruction or the role of interest in explaining the outcomes. In this study, 793 12-year-old pupils were taken into a science center mathematics exhibition in Latvia and Sweden, measuring their prior knowledge of the contents of the exhibition, general cognitive competences and individual interest in school mathematics before the visit, and their situational interest and learning outcomes after the exhibition
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mari-Pauliina VainikainenHannu SalmiHelena Thuneberg
There are many lenses through which we can measure the value of a museum experience.
There is the satisfaction factor: Did visitors have a good time? Were they engaged? Do they want to return?
There are learning outcomes: Did visitors learn something new? How much did they learn? How did their experience compare to other types of learning experiences?
And there is also meaning-making: Did respondents have a meaningful experience? A memorable one? A connective experience that made them want more?
While all three of these lenses (and many others) are important, meaning-making is
National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded an Informal Science Education (ISE) grant, since renamed Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) to a group of institutions led by two of the University of California, Davis’s centers: the Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) and the W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES). Additional partner institutions were the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center (ECHO), Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) at the University of California, Berkeley, and Audience Viewpoints Consulting (AVC). The summative evaluation study was
As part of the Exploratorium’s Indoor Positioning System (IPS) project, we prototyped a crowd-sourced, location-tagged audio app, called Exploratorium Voices, or Open Conversation, that visitors could use on smartphones to listen to short comments from staff, experts and other visitors and to leave their own comments for others to hear. This app was developed with Roundware, an open-source framework that collects, stores, and delivers audio content, integrated with a Wi-Fi IPS that provided location data used to tag audio recordings and determine where a visitor was to play recordings left
My Sky is a NASA funded project, which developed a traveling exhibition on astronomy. Boston Children’s Museum (BCM) created the exhibition in collaboration with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). Formative and remedial evaluations were conducted at BCM while the summative evaluation took place at the first two venues following BCM: Stepping Stones Museum for Children (Stepping Stones) in Norwalk, CT and The Providence Children’s Museum (PCM) in Providence, RI. Formative evaluation of the My Sky exhibit was conducted between April 2013 and June 2014 to ensure that the components
In late 2012, Providence Children’s Museum began a major three-year research project in collaboration with The Causality and Mind Lab at Brown University, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (1223777). Researchers at Brown examined how children develop scientific thinking skills and understand their own learning processes. The Museum examined what caregivers and informal educators understand about learning through play in its exhibits and how to support children’s metacognition – the ability to notice and reflect on their own thinking – and adults’ awareness and appreciation of kids’ thinking and learning through play. Drawing from fields like developmental psychology, informal education and museum visitor studies, the Museum’s exhibits team looked for indicators of children’s learning through play and interviewed parents and caregivers about what they noticed children doing in the exhibits, asking them to reflect on their children’s thinking. Based on the findings, the research team developed and tested new tools and activities to encourage caregivers to notice and appreciate the learning that takes place through play.
Teaching mathematics in informal settings is a relatively new phenomenon, but it has gained more attention due to the recent changes in the society. The aim of the present quantitative study was to compare the learning outcomes of Latvian and Swedish 12-year-olds when they visited a science centre mathematics-art exhibition originally designed in Estonia. The results showed that in general, prior knowledge of the exhibition contents was the strongest predictor of post-test results in both countries but that mathematical thinking skills and self-concept had a small added value in explaining the
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Hannu SalmiMari-Pauliina VainikainenHelena Thuneberg
Puppet interviews can be helpful for getting feedback from young children in informal learning environments like libraries, museums, or afterschool programs. While puppets are a standby for interviewing children in clinical settings and are being used more frequently in some areas of qualitative research, they tend to be under-utilized in informal learning environments - natural settings for puppets because of their connections with play (Epstein et al., 2008). Our team developed a puppet interview protocol for the Gradient research project (Gender Research on Adult-child Discussion in
Under a subcontract with Randi Korn & Associates, who conducted a study of the on‐site museum exhibit, RMC was engaged to conduct an evaluation of the Places of Invention online map site for the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. The Places of Invention online map, part of the 3,500 square foot on‐site exhibit, was developed as a platform for collecting invention stories related to specific places or landscapes submitted by Smithsonian staff, Smithsonian Affiliations, and visitors to the online map. RMC investigated three key topics related to
With the suite of environmental challenges faced by today’s society growing ever more imminent, the potential role of science and natural history museums as social institutions to promote environmental stewardship is being realized. A recent collaborative effort between the
EcoTarium in Worcester, MA and six other institutions across the country, the NSF funded City Science exhibit serves to introduce the public to new research on human-ecology interactions in urban settings. The project also supports the inclusion of Public Participation in Science Research (PPSR) elements in museum exhibits
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Marissa GallantShana HawrylchakJacqueline DeLisa
As part of a grant from the National Science Foundation, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is conducting regional STEM workshops in partnership with local science museums, entitled NFB STEM2U, for blind youth [youth], grades 3 – 6 and 9-12. During this second regional workshop in Boston, the NFB operated two different programs simultaneously: one program for youth, and a second program for their parents/caregivers. A third program, for Boston Museum of Science staff, was conducted earlier to prepare the museum staff to assist with the youth program. A separate report will discuss the