ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************
At the Saint Louis Science Center, we have been collecting data about our
visitors' demographics and visitation patterns since 1992. Three times per
year, we conduct exit interviews of a randomly selected sample of adult
general public visitors using an instrument we call our Topical Visitor
Survey. (The "topical" aspect refers to the fact that in addition to
standard questions about demographics and visitation that are asked on each
survey, we also include several topical questions that change each season
to address a current question of relevance to the institution.) The
results are reported seasonally and annually.
The demographic data we collect includes gender, visiting group type,
household income, ZIP code, age, age & number of children in group, marital
status, education level, and ethnicity. The visitation data includes
length of stay, usage of paid venues (our institution has free general
admission), sources of information, frequency of repeat visitation, and
amount spent per person . We don't collect any names or contact
information on this survey and while visitors can certainly refuse to
answer any question, we find that most are willing to answer all the
questions. The income question is refused the most often (~15-18% of the
time).
Since ZIP codes have been a focus of some of the recent posts...we use the
ZIP code data to identify the portions of our general public visitors that
come from within our MSA vs. tourists and then we can also look more
closely within our MSA and report on the portions of our audience from the
different counties within our MSA (and in St. Louis, that includes counties
in both Missouri and Illinois) as well as a more detailed breakdown within
St. Louis City and St. Louis County.
Elisa
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elisa Israel
Research & Evaluation Manager
Saint Louis Science Center
5050 Oakland Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63110
314-286-4613
Margaret Glass
<[log in to unmask]>
Sent by: Informal To
Science Education [log in to unmask]
Network cc
<ISEN-ASTC-L@COMM
UNITY.LSOFT.COM> Subject
Re: Visitor and Participant
Demographics
03/06/2007 01:56
PM
Please respond to
Informal Science
Education Network
<ISEN-ASTC-L@COMM
UNITY.LSOFT.COM>
ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
institutions.
*****************************************************************************
I'm interested in hearing more about the methods and ideas people have for
tracking demographic indicators at their institutions. As Karen pointed out
in the first posting, it's often a requirement of grant funding. And as
powerful as some zip code analyses may be, they alone aren't sufficient to
assess the effectiveness of programs or initiatives designed to reach out
to
different community sectors. You may have noticed in the last ASTC survey
that there was a question about what kinds of demographic data are recorded
at science centers and museums. As reported in the 2006 sourcebook, 61% of
respondents collect zip codes, while only 13% collect data on income and
12%
collect information on race/ethnicity.
With that background, I'd like to hear more from different people about how
they assess their visitorship. ASTC is beginning to collect examples of
protocols and instruments that seem to be particularly effective. If you
have anything you find useful, feel free to send it to me off-line
([log in to unmask]). It will be used here at ASTC in an effort to document
current practices and inform future ones.
Margaret
_____________
Margaret Glass
ASTC/NISE Network Communications Coordinator
Association of Science-Technology Centers
1025 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20005-6310 USA
202/783-7200 x 129 Fax 202/783-7207
[log in to unmask]
www.astc.org
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