Evaluation, Research and Communities of Practice: Program Evaluation in Museums

This from Rama Lakshmi in India: Let me introduce myself. I am a journalist who writes about India for The Washington Post. My other big professional path is museums. I was a student of Dr Jay Rounds in St Louis, Missouri. And have worked at the science and history museums in St Louis and at the Smithsonian's Museum of American Indian. I am going to begin teaching the MA museum studies class at the New Delhi-based National Museum Institute (which is a deemed university). And I am going to teach visitor studies. Dr Jay Rounds adviced me to write to you. Could you kindly send me your article "Evaluation, Research and Communities of Practice: Program Evaluation in Museums"? I would like to read it and also have my students read it. Do you have it electronically? I am also interested in your web discussion forum. How and where can I access it?

I get so many requests for this paper that I decided to post it to my audience research wiki (you need to go down the page a bit). Basically, this paper "... outlines the development of audience research in museums, the context within which it operates, and describes the processes of audience research through a series of case studies drawn from the work of the Australian Museum Audience Research Centre. It is argued that the shift in museums from mission-led program development to balancing content and audience needs through a transaction approach requires a broader research-focussed agenda. While traditional ways of conducting evaluations are necessary and useful, to remain viable audience research needs to be more strategic, working across the sector in new ways and utilising new methods. How programs impact on users and facilitate learning about a wide range of key issues that museums are concerned with is a leadership role that audience research can take across both the cultural sector and other free-choice learning contexts."

Rama, to access other resources there is this blog (naturally!), my audience research wiki mentioned above, and a new social networking group I have started called Museum 3.0 where all kinds of people can discuss all kinds of things. I'll be teaching audience research for Museum Studies at Sydney University this year also and have set up a discussion group specifically for that – it would be awesome if you and your students joined us. Please feel welcome to join up – I'll send you an invite (or click on the Museum 3.0 link at the top of my blog).

Photographic research

This query from Elena Miles, Master's student studying at Nottingham Trent Uni in England: For my undergraduate dissertation I explored literacy in children's everyday lives by distributing disposable cameras to a group of 8 year old children and asking them to photograph what they deemed significant. I am keen to develop with this method of research for my museum studies thesis. I am thinking of something along the lines of providing 15 children with disposable cameras during a museum trip and asking them to document the highlights of their visit. Aside from the obvious issues of multiple gate-keepers and other sensitivities I was wondering if you knew of any previous research along similar lines. I am aware of the flickr application and of visitor response cards, but it is the photographic research which I would particularly wish to focus on.

Hi Elena. This is a fertile field for study I believe. We did a study in 2003 called the Museum I'd like. In that young people from a number of the schools across Sydney were introduced to concepts of learning beyond the classroom and subsequently photographed aspects of, and experiences in, the Museum that "helped" or "got in the way" of their learning. Photographs were assembled in annotated posters that were subsequently analysed across the sample in order to unpack the major themes. I don't have that report to hand but will add a summary here when I get to it. I can send you the paper given at the British Educational Research Association Conference about the project. Subsequent to this I uploaded photos of the posters to my Flickr site to see if that way of sharing would work. I have blogged about Flickr as an evaluation tool which is the third most read post on this blog and the one with the most comments. This is one area I intend to be looking at in more detail this year as I think it has great potential.

I had a look around all my research reference books this morning and couldn't find any that specifically related to using photographs. I did a quick Google and found some things:

• Creative documentation: Using photography as a tool in action research, Maya Haviland (2004)
  
• Visual ethnography: Using photography in qualitative research, Dona Schwartz (1989)
  
• Using Photography in Art Education Research: A Reflexive Inquiry, Iona Cruickshank & Rachel Mason (2003)
  

Elena, if you have anything to share, especially a literature review, I'm sure readers of this blog would be really grateful (well, I would be anyway!).

Timing and pace of museum education visits

This question from Cathy Burke (UK): Dear Lynda, Susan Groundwater-Smith suggested I contact you to see if you know of any studies that have examined matters of timing and pace in the way that museum educators organised the experience of children visiting museums - especially on children's views on or experience of this - I am involved with a project that has generated this question at Manchester Art Gallery here in the UK. Looking for suitable literature. Feels like it is an important issue but I am finding it difficult to find relevant studies.

Hi Cathy. I don't know of any studies about this actually. A good resource is the Visitor Studies Group email alert where you can post a question. You could also look at Janette Griffin's thesis on school visits and museums, especially the lit review. It is available online at this link (I think!). If it doesn't work then go to the home page, search for University of Technology and her name and it should pop up. You could also email Janette (her details are on the UTS website).

There have been many general studies of timing in museums which may also be a good place to start. The Methodology chapter of my thesis has relevant lit and references (scroll down the page and it's there as a pdf).

I'd be really interested in what you find - can you let us all know via the blog please?

University museums engaging university students

This question from Sebastian Moody:

Hello Lynda,
My name is Sebastian Moody I am a Masters student in Museum Studies at the University of Queensland. I have commenced a case study of how university museums engage with the wider student population.

I was hoping that you would be able to inform me about other research that has been done in this area.

Sebastian - I don't know of any studies in this area - maybe some of our university museums colleagues could advise?