Reading Assignments for Thursday 23 March. Prompted Reflection due 1-hour before class.
Shoshana Klein
3/22/2017 21:34:14
Most of the research methods being used are observations of various kinds. Many track people's interactions between parent and child at an exhibit, including types of conversation and what kinds of ways each person interacts with the exhibit and with each other. As well as these observations, there were comparative studies that tracked differences in patterns when changing something about the environment (such as making something more interactive by taking away a glass covering so that people could touch the contents). Research methods also included interviewing visitors about their learning experiences. This sometimes included a pre- and post-interview, but sometimes just a reflection once they had gone through the exhibit or museum.
Sarika Bajaj
3/23/2017 01:14:22
The main research methods used in this paper consisted of observation of the visitors in museums (most notably their reactions, level of interactivity with the exhibit, and movement through the exhibit), self reporting done by visitors after going through an exhibit, and surveying of the visitors at different intervals of the exhibit. Some of the findings from these research methods include that museums often spark excitement in the subject matter (which has been found to be critical to spark sustained interest and effort in the subject matter), interactivity and "hands on" projects help visitors retain more information, and often presenting information that challenges or changes a previously held notion will help with retention of information as well. What I found especially interesting about the article however were the studies that involved observing how parent-child interactions occurred at museums and how that must be incorporated into exhibit design. The paper went into depth about how having a parent present definitely helped a child gain more from the museum but also discussed that often times (for an interactive activity especially) the parent might shoulder some of the more analytical work while keeping the child occupied with more manual parts of the activity. This would then result in the child not necessarily gaining as much information from the exhibit as the parent did. This led to me realizing an important challenge that museum exhibits face - having to appeal to different age groups and the possibility that an exhibit meant for a certain age group might not be as effective based on how different age groups interact. Another critical aspect of this set of studies was the fact that exhibit designers must incorporate the different personalities that approach museums with "agendas" as the paper phrases it. As museums are supposed to service a large audience, they must appeal to people who are not only very knowledgeable about the subject material and feel personal affinity with the subject but also those who know very little but are curious and wish to learn. This then ties back with the concept from before that museums themselves are found to be places that can spark initial excitement. I think the big takeaway from this article for me is that museums are definitely effective teaching mechanisms, but if not considered carefully, then exhibits may often fall short of appealing to a large audience - whether the segregation is caused by age, previous knowledge, or basic intrinsic interest.
Joyce Chen
3/23/2017 02:52:20
The research methods primarily consist of observing museum visitors. When observing visitors, it is best for scientists to look for signs of excitement and interest, since those indicate better early stages of learning. In addition, observing the user’s interactions with the exhibit is another way of gauging visitor learning. Generally, exhibits that are interactive will lead to more more interest and visitor engagement, and visitors will tend to think more about the concepts being taught. The research discussed in the paper also results from self-reports done by the visitors. In these self-reports, visitors can confirm that they have gained some content knowledge from a certain exhibit or experience. Another point to consider was that visitors often self-report a deeper understanding of the concept at hand, since they are building off of direct sensory or immersive experience from the exhibit. In addition, when observing large designed experiences, there are also opportunities for visitors to reflect on their own learning process.
Mimi Niou
3/23/2017 03:17:15
There are a wide variety of research methods mentioned in this chapter, ranging from very qualitative mass surveys, to observations of facial expressions, to more qualitative testing experiments. Most of the studies referenced had to do with observations of visitors in designed settings, be it analyzing the topics of their conversations and comments, recording their displayed emotions, or getting information about how they interacted with a certain exhibit. There were a few more rigorous studies, such as the testing of the effects of a certain bicycle exhibit for learning about bone structure, in which there were control groups and also retainment testing. In addition, the chapter referenced quite a few anecdotal examples to support various findings, similar to responses from self-reported visitor surveys.
Rohtih Pillai
3/23/2017 03:25:28
The reading went over some of the key ways of science content in a museum that included developing interest in science, engaging in scientific reasoning, reflecting on science to name a few. The reading shows examples for each and also mentions many design qualities that have been found to be helpful in learning like interactivity. However, throughout the reading there were mentions of many differing research methods for researching learning in a museum environment. The majority of the research methods seem to have been observational in nature. The researchers observe the actions, reactions, emotions of the visitors like children, parents, students, teachers etc. This can be seen mostly with respect to the parent-children interaction in the museum to see how the parents lead on the children, support and encourage the children to explore the museum, show them interesting exhibits etc. Some of the other popular method seemed to be self-reports from visitors about what they felt or learned from the exhibits. I believe that although they are great at letting us find out exactly what they learned, it is a form that is very reflective and few people would be willing to do them. So this might not give that a high quantity of data, but the quality of the response would be really high. Casual interviews and drawing personal meaning map diagrams, both pre- and post-exhibit was also mentioned as a technique used. Another method that was used in field trips was pre-post survey based studies. Furthermore, doing experiments seems to be the most popular method to test learning among visitors in different situations especially involving design choices.
Mary Safy
3/23/2017 03:49:45
There are several aspects that create a well-developed exhibition. The exhibition must be comfortable for the user — that is, it cannot overwhelm the user and cause them cognitive fatigue. It must also be engaging and provide users with an enjoyable experience. Elements that ‘surprise’ users are often used to engage them. Third, a good exhibition should be reinforcing — that is, it should provide feedback and support to visitors that they are engaging with the exhibition the way they should be. Lastly, a good exhibition should provide a meaningful experience to visitors. Not only should visitors learn scientific material, but also they should find personal significance in the things they have learned.
Mary Safy
3/23/2017 04:08:15
Additionally, this reading made me realize the significance of museums in increasing curiosity in users and creating an intrinsic motivation for people to learn about science and increase their personal commitment to action. The reading described a study in which visitors to two museums and two zoos were asked to describe their role in conservation action and being part of the solution to environmental problems. 54% of visitors said they would try to be part of the solution to environmental problems. However, a similar study of visitors to Disney Animal Kingdom’s Conservation Station showed that these plans of action are often short term, and visitors often do not continue with their intended conservation activities. I thought presenting potential solutions to visitors could be a very sensible way to increase motivation of visitors to continue intended activities. Therefore, providing examples of activities visitors could engage in that would help the environment would be necessary for a successful exhibit.
Stephanie Chung
3/23/2017 05:52:18
In Chapter 5 - "Science Learning in Designed Settings" of "Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits," there are a variety of research methods described. They range from highly qualitative surveys, to more observation based data collection, and even to more qualitative experimental studies. Much of the research mentioned dealt with observations regarding the visitors in the different designed settings. The text even notes that in Falk and Dierking's study in 1997, they directly interviewed students and adults after their museum field trip to gather data and insight on their memory, impact of the museum visit, etc. Another research method described was studying the parents’ explanations to their children in a museum context. I find it interesting that because the parents' explanations contribute towards a child's museum experience, depending on the type of explanation itself, the child's experience can vary vastly. Not to mention that children are already highly influenceable at a young age.
Isha Mehra
3/23/2017 07:59:33
The research methods mentioned in this chapter primarily consisted of observing the learning of visitors in museum exhibits through both observing interactions and collecting data in self-reports, surveys pre and post exhibit, and creating mind maps pre and post. The observations included how much the visitors interacted with the exhibit, what their understanding of the exhibit was after going through, and also actually observing facial expressions and how visitors spent their time. Some examples of specific methods included that the researchers set up an trial for parents to work with their children on a 45 minute experiment, and observed both what the parents and children roles in the experiments were as well as who gained the most knowledge from the trial. Research methods also included more quantitative methods such as collecting numbers on ticket sales which indicate how many people want to see the exhibit, recording the amount of time visitors spent on the exhibit, and recording the percentage of aspects of the exhibit visitors mentioned feeling excitement towards in post exhibit surveys.
Ankita Jha
3/23/2017 08:04:45
This chapter reported multiple research methods that are using observation of visitors upon the exhibit. These observations can be how the visitor moved, perceived, or reacted to the exhibit, or how a child and a parent, or any two people may have interacted upon visiting an exhibit. With this another method that was popularly used was to survey the visitor pre-departure about their learning experiences (in some cases a self-reported visitor survey was used as well); asking them to reflect in a way. This paper drew a connection between interaction and learning, and how observations and various other research methods can help us better understand this connection. Researchers in this paper are focused on how to engage the audience/visitors and keep them interested.
Nikhil Lingireddy
3/23/2017 08:21:49
There are many research methods outlined in this chapter, including surveys using qualitative data, experimental studies and more. The majority is made up of observational studies, which can give a lot of insight to the way visitors are interacting with and learning from the exhibits at the museum.
Andrew Wang
3/23/2017 09:15:00
This chapter discusses many different research methods that can be conducted in regards to a visitor in an exhibit. While most of these methods fall under the observation category, such as observing the users emotions, movements, and perceived interest, methods using surveys were also discussed, involving surveys before and after the viewing the exhibit. The main focus of these methods as discussed in this chapter were attempting to keep the user interested in the exhibits, and it appeared that a particularly successful method in doing so was increasing exhibit interactivity.
Aprameya Mysore
3/23/2017 09:32:39
This chapter explores metrics of success for science learning in designed settings organized by “Strands” which conceptually consolidate learning outcomes into types of learning that can be facilitated. The six strands outlined in this chapter are: Developing an Interest in Science, Understanding Scientific Knowledge, Engaging in Scientific Reasoning, Reflecting on Science, Engaging in Scientific Practices, and Identifying with the Scientific Enterprise. First, the authors discuss how an ideal designed setting would be able to facilitate learning outcomes across multiple strands, and discuss broadly the types of research practices used to capture data about how successfully a given setting is facilitating learning. The three main research philosophies introduced are: focus on the development of scientific ideas and processes, focus on the appropriation of language and the participation in scientific culture, and focus on changes in participant identity. Next the authors dive into the individual strands, explaining how the general research philosophies are applied in specific studies targeted to a particular learning outcome. In this section lots of very specific research methods are discussed to assess both short and long term learning impacts of a given designed setting. One method that stuck out to me was highlighted in the “Engaging in Scientific Reasoning” strand under techniques that measure the impact of interactivity--researchers observed parents explaining content of exhibits to their children to try to understand whether a particular exhibit was facilitating learning. It turned out that while this was uniquely targeted to the family audience of the exhibit, parents did not communicate with their children with any sort uniform style across observations. This meta idea of trying to identify learning outcomes and learning success while avoiding confounding factors is an theme I found very interesting that spanned many different research methods covered.
Ken Situ
3/23/2017 12:02:39
It seems that in informal learning environments, the most prominent research method mentioned is self-reports by patrons. In the particular case of museums, these patrons largely include families, school classes, individuals, teen groups, etc. They evaluate exhibits qualitatively through commenting on their personal experiences and revelations. This is also a great way to gauge whether learning has happened. When self-reporting, the most available information, the bits of experience that stuck the most, are what people were most surprised about. That surprise is good evidence of learning, a shift in their knowledge. It is a mark that one's beliefs were not in accordance with the exhibit, and that the exhibit has made a lasting impact. These self-reports works hand in hand with experimental studies to compare the effectiveness of control conditions versus conditions that learning scientists want to test, i.e. interactiveness.
Obed Appiah-Agyeman
3/24/2017 03:11:37
The chapter elaborated on various research methods for accomplishing impactful science learning. The research methods are divided up into strands that expand on the various aspects of scientific learning for visitors. The six strands are Developing an Interest in Science, Understanding Scientific Knowledge, Engaging in Scientific Reasoning, Reflecting on Science, Engaging in Scientific Practices, and Identifying with the Scientific Enterprise. The chapter goes on to explain each strand and their different components that contribute to learning. The most important concept in learning science from this article in my opinion is the idea of interactivity stemming from the strand Engaging in Scientific Reasoning. From my perspective, interactivity can create the most engaging learning experiences for the audience. When an exhibit becomes interactive it creates a shared space for the learner and the exhibit to exchange information. That exchange allows for not only learning and understanding to occur but a richer interpersonal experience for the learner. For example, the aquarium study by Goldowsky illustrates how an interactive experience lead to an increase comprehension of penguins’ motivations. Moreover, it is no surprise that the “doing and seeing” technique for interactivity in exhibits has been the most popular. With this level of interaction, we can see that when the learner takes a more investigative approach natural deductive reasoning leads to a more comprehensive understanding of the material as shown in the Rennie and McClaffer (2002) experiment.
Sean Q Moore
3/25/2017 15:01:34
The wide range of research methods needed to assess scientific learning spaces can each be most helpful to researchers when correctly applied circumstantially. Picking which method to employ will be based entirely on the researcher's goals and ultimately driven by cognitive and design principles.
Nicole Pinto
3/25/2017 21:16:57
The paper discusses how informal learning spaces are intentionally designed with the user in mind. Researchers primarily use observations to provide insight with how a user is engaging with such a space. They observe the actions and emotions of children, parents, teachers, and any other users interested in engaging in a learning space. Interviews serve as an extension of observational research, as they provide key insight into what the users were thinking while engaging with the exhibit, and how they felt upon exiting the learning space. For Strand 1, developing interest in science, researchers observed that excitement, interest, and comfort were key factors in promoting interest in an exhibit. Researchers conducted observational research for strand 2, understanding scientific knowledge, to conclude that a well designed exhibit can be powerful enough to challenge preconceived notions. For example, Borun, Massey, and Lutter (1193) noted that visitors “changed their mistaken belief that gravity needs air in order to work after interacting with an exhibit showing a ball in a tube that could be evacuated” (138). Strand 3, engaging in scientific reasoning, is primarily explored through observational research conducted at physically interactive exhibits at science centers, since they support a broader range of learning spaces. The most studied group is the family unit because they make up the largest proportion of visitors at science centers. Researchers learned that visitors are engaged by experiences that offer interactivity, but the degree of interactivity matters greatly. Interactive exhibits can provide a space where additional learning and thought can occur, but participants can be confused if an exhibit overly utilizes interactivity. In this strand, doing and seeing is extremely relevant, as researchers learned that the more likely visitors were to explore an exhibit and see what happens at it, the more likely they are to gain knowledge from it. Parents can help children learn by recontextualizing knowledge gained from an exhibit by framing it in terms of personal experiences. Researchers discovered that users that question and predict what the exhibit’s outcome utilize a form of inquiry behavior that is crucial to learning. In Strand 5, engaging in scientific practices, researchers primarily viewed parent-child interactions as part of the observational evidence. They determined that parents are critical in selecting evidence and using it appropriately to justify the conclusions at an exhibit. Conversations and explanations are really important in learning, but it depends upon the prior background the user has when approaching the subject matter. In Strand 6, identifying with the scientific enterprise, observers noted that the visitor’s agenda, or the expectations the visitor has when visiting an exhibit, can impact the degree of learning they experience. Informal learning environments must ensure that their agenda coincides with the learning agenda of the users to maximize overall learning.
Sai Dhulipalla
5/15/2017 20:09:55
There are many research methods being used for informal environments that are designed for learning like museums and science centers. In this structured setting, Comments are closed.
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