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My comments on the thread on exhibit evaluation:


1. Despite the fact that the evaluation framework includes impact categories that do not focus primarily on "learning" such as awareness, engagement and behavior, summative evaluation seems inexorably attracted to cognitive impacts.  (You can find the framework here:
http://caise.insci.org/uploads/docs/Eval_Framework.pdf)


2. The use of "impact" seems to mean "how did the exhibit experience change the person?", implying a before (how the person is before they go to the exhibit), treatment (visiting the museum), and impact (treatment effect or how the person is changed).


I am not sure if there is a definitve survey of why people visit museums, although there is some good work by Falk, Dierking, Garibay and others concerning how people make choices about the use of their leisure time including going to museums.


In any event, I believe (without a study backing me up) that one of the most important reasons (certainly not the only reason) people visit museums is that they want to see and/or experience the "real thing" and experience "real things" they can't easily experience in their everyday lives.  They want to see the actual painting by Picasso, they want to play with light and magnetism, see fossil dinosaurs, etc.  


So I think the museum experience is primary and I still like Falk and Dierking's book "The Museum Experience."  Like Ted Ansbacher has written many times on "experience-based learning," in exhibit design, we should design for what people "see and do."


While there are many brilliant exhibits, such as the Body Worlds and Exploratorium exhibits that may have been designed without formative evaluation, I can speak from personal experience that most people aren't Steve Jobs and that a newly designed interactive exhibit is like a new product -- often the concept is good but the design may be flawed and can be improved with formative evaluation.  


I high recommend Sam Taylor's classic book, "Try It! Improving Exhibits Through Formative Evaluation."  It is a very practical guide, with good background and lots of "how to" advice.  Formative evaluation can really improve the experience.


Bob Russell
National Center for Interactive Learning/Space Science Institute











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