Identifying causal relationships is an important aspect of research and evaluation in visitor studies, such as making claims about the learning outcomes of a program or exhibit. Experimental and quasi-experimental approaches are powerful tools for addressing these causal questions. However, these designs are arguably underutilized in visitor studies. In this article, we offer examples of the use of experimental and quasi-experimental designs in science museums to aide investigators interested in expanding their methods toolkit and increasing their ability to make strong causal claims about
Although discussions of museums often revolve around exhibits, educators in these spaces have the potential to create in-depth, social learning experiences beyond what is possible at exhibits alone. There is still little empirical research, however, to inform how we understand, approach, and improve museum facilitation practices. In this study, we sought to address this gap by quantifying the impact of facilitation by trained educators working with visitors at interactive museum exhibits and comparing this to visitor engagement and learning outcomes for families without educator support. Using
This paper describes an NSF-funded study which explored the relationship between female-responsive exhibit designs and girls’ engagement. Across three participating science centers, 906 museum visitors ages 8 to 13 were observed at 334 interactive physics, math, engineering, and perception exhibits. We measured girls’ engagement based on whether they chose to use or return to the exhibits, opted to spend more time at them, or demonstrated deeper engagement behavior. Findings suggest that the design strategies identified in our previously developed Female-Responsive Design Framework can inform
This paper describes the development of a Female-Responsive Design Framework for Informal Science Education (ISE). The FRD Framework translates ideas from Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to discover and recommend pedagogical strategies that apply to females and design. This paper describes our synthesis of prior research about females’ social, historical, and cultural practices in STEM learning from a variety of fields. The paper further details our process of developing the FRD Framework with the help of museum practitioners, female youth, researchers, and experts from the fields of design
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
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), located in Portland, is a hands-on science museum. In 2013, OMSI received funding from the National Science Foundation for the project Researching the Value of Educator Actions for Learning (REVEAL) to study how museum educators can better help families learn math while interacting with museum exhibits. Through REVEAL, OMSI was able to partner with Adelante Mujeres, a non-profit community organization located in Forest Grove that educates and empowers Latina women and their families. Here we share some of the lessons learned from the
In December the Science Museum will open Mathematics: The Winton Gallery. The new gallery tells mathematical stories in relation to a broad spectrum of fundamental human concerns. One of the key exhibits is a newly acquired machine for modelling storm surges in the North Sea. Designed by Japanese engineer Shizuo Ishiguro, the object offers a way to explore the far-reaching impact and relevance of mathematical work.
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
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Hannu SalmiMari-Pauliina VainikainenHelena Thuneberg
The REVEAL project is an NSF funded project to learn about how facilitation impacts family’s experiences of math exhibits. The goal of the project was to iteratively develop and refine a theoretical model of how staff facilitation deepens and extends family mathematical discourse at interactive exhibits. This model underwent rigorous testing and ultimately provided the evidence and research-based tools to support PD efforts for informal STEM educators. As part of this testing the learnings from developing at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, in Portland, Oregon) were applied in an
Assuming that scientific development and artistic research are genetically similar, this article shows the common need of knowledge of art and science, their dialectical and multidirectional relations and the unstable boundaries between them. The fractal art has assimilated the cognitive and perceptive changes in the realm of non-euclidean geometries and has become a precise instrument of "epistemological observation". Artistic practices materialize and communicate the laws of science, while scientific revolutions are in actual facts metaphorical revolutions.
Popularising mathematics requires a preliminary reflection on language and terms, the choice of which results from underlying dynamics. The aim of this article is to start an overall analysis of the conditions influencing this linguistic choice.
This essay is an account of the making of England and her Soldiers (1859) by Harriet Martineau and Florence Nightingale. The book is a literary account of the Crimean War, written by Martineau and based on Nightingale’s statistical studies of mortality during the conflict. Nightingale was passionate about statistics and healthcare. Whilst working as a nurse in the Crimea, she witnessed thousands of soldiers die of infectious diseases that might have been prevented with proper sanitation. After the war, she launched a campaign to convince the British government to make permanent reforms to