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Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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This circles back to an earlier discussion about testing on this forum. If we are serious about learning, whether in physics class, a museum gallery, or a grocery store, unless we understand the cognitive and neurological systems responsible for learning, we are always looking at a black box. There is a lot of work on functional and structural networks of the brain that are revealing new information about how we think. Most recently breakthroughs in the effects of music and learning. But these ideas surface through different kinds of studies, not just fMRI imaging or visitor studies, or cognitive research, etc. but bringing together a many-dimensioned lens on the problems. It would be great to see the government focus on the "learning brain" instead of the "active brain" and have science centers lead the way. I feel an SBE proposal coming on :) 

Stephen Miles Uzzo, PhD.
VP, Science & Technology
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, NY 11368 USA
V +1.718.595.9177
F +1.718.699.5227


On Apr 2, 2013, at 1:00 AM, Charles Carlson wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I want to emphasize how impressed I was about the results of  "random" sampling of AP Physic students.  Clearly, a visit to the Exploratorium had a significant impact on their attitudes towards science.  I would be even better to do a control group.  I share Alan's view from over 40 years of experience that there's not likely "one" visitor.  I would observe that scientists literally "know what got them interested," and that's really good but it has it's downsides too.
> 
> I primarily wish that we actually tested many of the observations and hypothesis that are generated over the course of exhibit evaluations.  What infuriates me, is that exhibit evaluation and research on learning are conflated with economic interest's of museums; that it is almost impossible to run controlled studies that come to understand human learning behavior without vested interests.
> 
> The upshot is, people tend make all kinds of predictions about this and that, but they're predictions with many complex variables.  They are typically way too complex for our sample sizes, but we do it over and over again.  The error bars of predictability are immense, and I personally find that frustrating, not because it's a difficult problem (which it is) but because the approach is highly unlikely to result in a meaningful solution.  
> 
> That said, I believe that museums are a perfect place to find a solution.  They are better indicators than schools because they more accurately approximate the complexities of life and are thus a better integral.
> 
> In my view, which I think ought to be our view, I'm satisfied to say an exhibit has STEM content and it's popular, and people spend X amount of time at it.  Beyond that we ought to engage in controlled research at a few institutions, and the research ought to be part of cognitive science studies. Creating a mass of marginally comparable studies will not solve anything; if anything it clutters more than sharpen. 
> 
> Actually, I think we ought to verify that a few institutions are representative of the body at large and then move forward.  Museums present a useful and really unprecedented way of studying human behavior and learning over the course of human life, and it's an opportunity that remains unrealized.
> 
> C

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