Museum Audience Insight

Changing Exhibitions at Museums – Part Three

In our last two posts, we shared a research query we had received about the value of changing exhibitions to a museum, and how we went about plumbing the depths of our databases to see what we could find, and then examined how different audience segments, as well as how those who specifically said “their” museum had “good exhibits,” responded.

In this post, we’ll examine the data from two other perspectives, asking ourselves:  

• How do respondents who wrote in that they specifically wanted more changing or temporary exhibitions compare against the overall samples?
• Are there any differences in responses by museum type? 

 

Bringing in the written-in comments:  those who want more change

Although we didn’t ask specifically about changing exhibitions in any of the surveys we are examining, some people told us their preference anyway by writing in a comment about it.  Since the vast majority of these comments came on the question where we asked how “their” museum was falling short (they marked “other” and wrote in a comment), we coded the written-in comments for this question only, separating out the individuals who specifically asked for more changing exhibitions within “their” museum. 

Overall, 10% of written-in comments to the question about how “their” museum falls short said they specifically wanted more temporary or changing exhibitions, nearly 1,300 respondents, more than enough to examine more closely.

When we looked at who wrote in these types of comments, we did find that they were much more likely to be parents of minor children, and much less likely to be adults without minor children (though they might have minor grandchildren).  Additionally, these respondents generally visited more often, but only one of these surveys included membership data, which indicated that they were also more likely to be a member.  At first this was a surprising profile, but upon further consideration made a lot of sense.  Since parents of younger children tend to be the highest volume of repeat visitors, and thus are more likely to be members, they are in and out of the museum a lot more than other audience segments.  That familiarity with the exhibitions likely translates to a greater demand for change, as they seek out anything that is novel or new.  Indeed, a handful comments reflected this one:

“Need a bigger variety of exhibits.  They don't change much, and can cause a ‘I'm bored, already done this’ feeling for young children.”

Overall, respondents who specifically asked for more changing exhibitions were generally more negative than the overall sample.  Looking across several metrics, such as whether “their” museum had good events, programs, facility, was engaging to children or adults, brought the community together, or that the staff cares, we generally see lower marks, between 1 and 8 percentage points lower.  At times these differences are significant, and others they are within the margin of error, but we can say with confidence that they are generally more negative, but not hugely so, even on the metric of “good exhibits.” 

Except.  There was one metric where their opinion of “their” museum plummeted:  if the museum met their needs.  Overall, when we asked the entire sample how “their” museum was falling short on meeting their needs, 42% of respondents said “no, they meet our needs extremely well.”  Among those who wrote in a desire for more changing exhibitions, only 2% said their needs were met.  Two percent.  In other words, the overall sample was twenty-one times more likely to say their needs were met than those who wanted more changing exhibitions.  This, combined with a slightly greater sense of negativity, indicates that there is an overall sense of dissatisfaction with the perceived stasis of museums.

If the difference across all of the customer service metrics we examined was consistent with that of “needs met,” we might be tempted to view these individuals as just grumps who complain about everything.  The fact that there was a difference indicates a much more complicated picture.  They are not just the people who complain about everything, but instead visitors who value some specific things, but still appear to be overall dissatisfied with “their” museum.  Ultimately, more research is needed in this area.

 

Variations by museum genre

Finally, we wanted to examine if there were differences among visitors to different types of museums.  That is, was there more demand for changing exhibitions at some types of museums than at others? 

The answer is a resounding yes.  The written-in comments from respondents from science centers were 60% more likely to specifically want more changing exhibitions than the overall sample – 16% of written-in comments vs. 10% overall (keep in mind these percentages come from coding of written-in comments, and are high enough to be taken quite seriously).  Children’s museums respondents were also slightly more likely to want more changing exhibitions.  Demand for change was lowest among history-based organizations, 6%, but much of this can be attributed to low demand at outdoor history museums, whose high staffing levels with costumed interpreters lend a sense of change naturally to these sites; only 2% of written-in comments from outdoor history museums asked for more exhibition change, while more traditional history museums were closer to the 10% topline average.  Art museums matched the overall sample at 10%.

 

Final thoughts

This examination of exhibitions, and changing exhibitions, while it does not specifically delve into their value to a museum, does shed some light on how important they are to visitors.  A sense of change does seem to correlate with happier visitors, while those who want more change are less satisfied, overall, with “their” museum.

These findings inform us the most when we examine the data by museum genre, as they do imply that science centers need to be the most proactive in creating a sense of change in their museums, as parents seek out new and novel activities for their active children.  In contrast, changing exhibitions at outdoor history museums do not seem to be of great importance.  But children’s museums, art museums, and more traditional history museums should still take heed of the demand for changing exhibitions, as 10% of written-in comments is still considered a significant number in qualitative research on this scale.  Museums of any type that are specifically seeking to attract family audiences should also bear in mind how important change is to parents.

Changing exhibitions does not necessarily mean huge costs, though costs are certainly a factor.  Of the written-in comments we examined asking for more changing exhibitions, none referred to what we call “blockbuster” exhibitions.  Some suggested small changes to liven things up.  Change might be a “science in the news” area, which changes on a weekly basis but would not necessarily meet design standards for a longer-lasting exhibition.  Change can be delving into the permanent collection and highlighting an artist, or a local history topic, and featuring those items through a new lens (a tactic deployed by many museums during these rough economic times).  Change doesn’t mean an expensive line item, and it doesn’t mean changing over the entire museum every six weeks, though it does mean a commitment of some funds and considerable time. 

The benefits of changing exhibitions do, in this initial research, appear to be worthwhile, but further research on the specific topic is necessary to make direct ties to how much changing exhibitions bring in new visitors, less frequent visitors, or affect overall visitation and membership rates. 

But changing exhibitions do seem to make visitors happier, and happy visitors are more likely to visit more often, join, and tell others.  Don’t we all want happy visitors like that?

 

What do you think?  Do you think changing exhibitions make happier visitors?  Improve visitation?  Provide a good bang for your museum’s budget?  Or are they a drain on time and resources for little return?  We would love your thoughts.  Simply click on “comments” below to share your thoughts (and if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription, go to our blog to comment).

Changing Exhibitions at Museums – Part Two

In our last post, we shared a research query we had received about the value of changing exhibitions to a museum, and how we went about plumbing the depths of our databases to see what we could find. 

In this post, we’ll tackle the first two ways we examined the data, asking ourselves:  

• How do different audience segments view the exhibitions quality at the museum they responded to when asked what “their” museum does well? 
• How do those who specifically said “their” museum had “good exhibits” differ from the overall samples?

 

How do different segments view exhibitions at museums?

First off, we were curious about how certain segments viewed exhibitions at “their” museums.  In particular, we wondered if members were more positive than non-members, if more frequent visitors differed than less frequent visitors, if parental status made a difference, if those who said their needs were met were more positive than otherwise, and if those who sought out immersive experiences responded any differently (note that not all of these segments appeared in all of the surveys reviewed).

Generally, we did find that members were more likely to say “good exhibits” than non-members.  Additionally, those who visit more often (2+ times/year) were also more likely to say “good exhibits” than those who visit only once a year or less.  Parents of minor children were the least likely to say “good exhibits,” grandparents the most likely, and those without minor children or grandchildren falling somewhere in between, conforming with previously established patterns of parents being the most critical of audience segments. 

There was a bigger gap between those who said that “their” museum met their needs, and those that did not, on whether “their” museum had “good exhibits,” a gap of 21 percentage points, 73% vs. 52%.  Finally, those visitors that seek out immersive museum experiences were slightly more likely to say “their” museum had “good exhibits.”

Overall, no big surprises here.  Repeat visitors who are members tend to be happier with the exhibitions on display (though, as we’ll see, this doesn’t always hold true).  And happier visitors are also more likely to think well of the exhibitions.  So let’s see what happens when we only look at the respondents who feel “their” museum has “good exhibits.” 

 

Those who say “good exhibits”

While above we looked at how different audience segments responded to the “good exhibits” selection, now we are going to reverse our perspective and look at how the entire segment of those who said “their” museum had “good exhibits” responded to other questions. 

In general, we found that those who said “good exhibits” were:

• Slightly more likely to visit more often
• Gave a wider variety of reasons for visiting
• Slightly more likely to be a member
• Gave more reasons for joining, for both philanthropic (e.g., helping museum improve) and budgetary reasons (e.g., saving money)
• More likely to say their needs are met by “their” museum

Additionally, it seems like these individuals are more active museum goers, visiting a wider variety of museums.  For those who responded to the outdoor history museum study, they were more likely to want to immerse themselves in the past, and seemed to enjoy history more. 

Once again, overall, no big surprises.  People who like the exhibitions are generally happier and more engaged with the museum they are responding to.

 

In our third and final post on this topic, we’ll continue this discussion and examine responses from those who specifically wrote in they wanted more changing exhibitions, and also take a look at how responses varied among different museum genres. 

 

What do you think?  Do you think changing exhibitions make happier visitors?  Improve visitation?  Provide a good bang for your museum’s budget?  Or are they a drain on time and resources for little return?  We would love your thoughts.  Simply click on “comments” below to share your thoughts (and if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription, go to our blog to comment).

Changing Exhibitions at Museums – Part One

Exhibitions are crucial to museums.  After all, that is what most people come to museums to see. 

But how important are changing exhibitions to visitors?  Do they drive attendance?  Membership?  Or are people fairly content with permanent exhibitions?

We were recently asked what our existing data sets say about museum visitors and changing exhibitions, and while our data is limited in scope-we’ve never explicitly asked about this topic-we were able to pull out some interesting points that can start to give us an idea of the value of changing exhibitions.

We examined four different research projects to answer this query:

• National study of children’s museums (2007; n>5,000)
• International study of science centers and museums (2008; n>15,000)
• National study of outdoor history museums (2008; n>5,500)
• International study of a wide variety of museums (2010; n>40,000); broken down by:
  • Art museums
  • History-based museums
  • Children’s museums
  • Science centers

For each of these studies we recruited individual museums to send an e-mail blast to their list, asking people to take a survey on behalf of the museum, meaning survey respondents were core museum visitors, not infrequent or more casual visitors.  Additionally, for the analysis for this query, responses were primarily from two questions about how the museum that sent the survey request out falls short in meeting expectations, or what it does well.  Thus, when we say “their” museum, respondents were thinking of the museum that e-mailed them in the first place. 

There were four primary ways we could look at the data, comparing:

• How different audience segments viewed the exhibitions quality at the museum they responded to when asked what “their” museum does well 
• Those who specifically said “their” museum had “good exhibits” against the overall samples
• Respondents who wrote-in that they specifically wanted more changing or temporary exhibitions, comparing them against the overall samples
• How respondents from different genres of museums responded differently (or not) 

Over the next couple of posts we’ll examine the data and share what we learned.

What do you think, and what do you think we’ll find?  Do you think changing exhibitions make happier visitors?  Improve visitation?  Provide a good bang for your museum’s budget?  Or are they a drain on time and resources for little return?  We would love your thoughts.  Simply click on “comments” below to share your thoughts (and if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription, go to our blog to comment).

Books: The Ultimate Sticky Object?

Dinosaurs are sticky.  So are dioramas.  And suits of armor, dollhouses, and majestic architecture. 

We know these are sticky, as in memorable, from the considerable research we conducted last year on what adult museum-goers remember from their childhood museum experiences. 

But what about libraries?  Are there similar patterns?

When we conducted our study of libraries last year, we asked respondents to think back to their childhood library experiences, and tell us what they remember.  Interestingly, there were some similar patterns.

What do people remember? 

Overwhelmingly, books.  Looking at books.  Reading books.  Favorite books. 

“I never felt so wonderfully excited as a child when visiting my hometown library The walls and stacks of books full of secrets, adventures and stories of children who went to magical places, heartwarming family stories and imaginary friends all tucked between the shelves. I loved to talk to the librarians about new books and offer my opinion on them.”

And if they were not remembering books, they were remembering actually checking out books.

“I was utterly amazed that I was allowed to take 6 children's books home with me. What was even more astounding was that after I read them, I could turn them in for 6 more. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. ”

The activities and programs that took place in the children’s room were also memorable, as were the tangible rewards of reading programs:

“I remember the summer reading clubs. Every summer would have a new theme, a colored sheet of paper with, say, a haunted house background, and then every week I'd give a short report on what I read and get stickers. There were some prizes/event at the end, which I can't remember, but, man, I loved the theme sheets and stickers.”

Just like in our museum work, the scale of a library could be extremely memorable.  People talked about grand buildings, miles of books, and the stories hidden away within those books.

“It smelled wonderful. Like old books and wood. There were large glass windows and high, high ceilings. The books went on forever!”

Of course, librarians were memorable as well.  While most librarians were remembered fondly,

“Very supportive children's librarian, who would ask me ‘Where are you going this week?’ I was going places in my mind and imagination. And the librarian knew it!”

some were not,

“I hated it! It was very scary place and librarians were very mean. I always felt like I was bothering them if I had a question.”

There was one other area that was hugely memorable – that first library card.  We’ll explore that more in our next post.

So what did we learn about library memories, and how do these memories help us think about museum experiences?  Overall, the memories were similar. 

• While library memories are overwhelmingly about books, museum memories are about the fantastic objects that museums care for.  Collections, whether books or rocks, are memorable.
• Grand architecture and immense scale are common themes, and do not appear to be at all forbidding to young children, but instead delight and intrigue.
• Small, tangible mementos, such as stickers and ribbons, are retained or remembered from libraries, and small items given to children visiting museums (such as that length of silk thread, given to me at an exhibition on China, that I have held onto for 25 years) are also treasured.
• The kindness of a librarian, or a museum employee, can be a wonderful thing. 

These similar themes reinforce how important these “sticky” experiences are for children, and while not every museum is going to be able to hit all four memory hot buttons, it is worth considering how your museum is maximizing your sticky opportunities to ensure that young children today grow up with positive museum experiences to remember over the decades to come.

So what do you think?  What are your earliest library memories?  To share your thoughts, simply click on “comments” below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)

Fun, Happiness, and Play

Fun, as we shared last week, can be a loaded word when it comes to museums.  While many museum-going parents and younger adults think about museums as “fun” experiences, a good segment of older adults are less comfortable with the idea that museums can be “fun.”

Our post elicited some interesting comments (with those commenting pretty firmly in the “fun” camp, understanding that “fun” and education/learning are not mutually exclusive concepts).  The comments raised some good points including:

• “Fun” may be a word younger museum-goers use to describe museums, but it is not necessarily a word the general public might choose.  We simply don’t have enough data on the public’s perceptions of “fun” and museums to draw strong conclusions at this point.
• Additionally, “fun” is one of many motivations for visiting museums.  For some people, “fun” is the primary motivation.  For others, “fun” is a secondary motivation.  And for some, “fun” is not a motivation at all (though that does not mean they do not enjoy museums). 
• And then there was the idea that the word “fun” might translate to mean “play” for some visitors.  That is, for older adults who would not use the word “fun,” it may be because they don’t care for the idea of museums as playgrounds.  Whereas parents do, indeed, often comment about museums being playgrounds for their young children.  For young adults, “fun” museums may be places to play with ideas, concepts, art, science, etc.

We wanted to consider the third bullet, which originates out of Colleen Dilenschneider’s comment, more carefully, so we took a quick look at some of our data from last winter’s study of 40,000+ museum goers. 

In that study, respondents were asked why they visited museums, and were asked to choose one of the following:

• Curiosity
• Family time
• Fun
• Learning opportunities for children
• Only visit on vacation/for something specific
• Other

Each choice then went to a follow-up question asking why curiosity/family time/fun/learning were important to them, why they only visited infrequently, etc.  We then examined these open-ended responses to look for the word “play.”

Turns out, Colleen is, indeed, on to something.  Respondents who selected “fun” were significantly more likely to use the word “play” in their responses, being twice as likely to use “play” than the family time or learning respondents, and over 22 times (yes, 22) more likely to use the word “play” than curious respondents (keep in mind that most older respondents to the survey chose “curiosity,” so this makes sense).

OK – all fair enough.  But I want to add on another layer, inspired by a recent article in Fast Company on Stanford marketing professor Jennifer Aaker, who teaches a class on “Designing Happiness.” In her work, she has found that the concept of “happiness” shifts as people age.  Young people are happier when they are excited (think kids and dinosaurs!), while older people are more likely to link happiness with peacefulness.

Cue the light bulbs going off in my head like crazy.  Her findings mirror ours around the word fun.  If excitement = happiness, then it isn’t a huge leap to conjecture the following:

• For younger respondents, play = excitement = happiness = fun
• For older respondents, play = excitement = fun ≠ peacefulness, ergo play & fun ≠ happiness

Since a segment of museum-going older adults go to museums to relax and escape their everyday lives by seeing beautiful things and stoking their personal curiosity and interests, “fun” may, indeed, imply to them a noisy, boisterous environment that is anything but relaxing.  Their reactions to the word “fun” to describe museums (or simply their not thinking of using it at all), now makes more sense. 

Does this mean you should avoid the word “fun” when working to attract and engage more visitors to your museum?  Not at all, so long as you understand that the word has many meanings to different segments of museum-goers (as well as non-museum-goers).

What do you think?  Does fun = play?  Can museums be playful, for adults of all ages?  What about adults who are happiest when in more relaxing (i.e., quieter) environments? We'd love to hear what you think.  To share, simply click on “comments” below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)

Museums are Fun! Museums are NOT Fun!

Fun has been on our minds lately.  Why?  Because, for some people, “fun” is a loaded word.  For others it is an extrinsic motivation.  And for some, it is an intrinsic motivation.

Let’s pick this apart.

In our surveys, we often ask respondents why they visit museums, and one of the potential answers is that museums are “fun.”  This, on the surface, seemed pretty innocuous, as it was one of several choices.  But to some respondents, it is a lightning rod, and we see comments like these:

• “I also worry about the use of the word 'fun'; I would think that enjoyable, pleasant, worthwhile, etc. would be better evaluators of the experience of visitors to museums.”
• “[It’s] as if you're surveying for a theme park . . .  [but] not at the price of dumbing down to merely being ‘a fun experience,’ or however you put it, above all else.”

That is, for a certain segment of regular museum goers, “fun” is simply not a word they  consider using to describe museum experiences, as “fun” implies dumbing down, simplification, hands-on activities, and even noise.  Typically, almost all of these respondents are over the age of 50.

When it comes to younger respondents, “fun” is a word that they often use to describe museum experiences, and it is a very positive term. 

For parents, “fun” is an evaluative term used to describe the types of experiences they seek out for their children.  That is, museums are “fun” for children because they have cool stuff, hands-on activities, etc.  Or they believe that museums make learning “fun,” therefore museums are “fun.”  For these parents, “fun” is a primarily extrinsic motivation, projected onto the experience that children have at the museum, and not necessarily reflecting the experience that the parents have themselves.  (Though some parents do clearly have as much “fun” as their children.) 

But the use of the word “fun” to describe museum visits is not restricted to parents.  When we examine respondents who are not parents of minor children, we find that “fun” may be an indicator of a significant generational language shift.  Younger adults are much more likely to think of museums as “fun” than older adults.  Additionally, young adults in their 20s without children are the most likely segment of all to think of museums as “fun,” even beating out parents.

For childless museum-going adults in their 20s (as well as childless adults in their 30s and 40s), “fun” is an intrinsic motivation.  They are seeking out “fun” experiences for themselves.  Museums are a “fun” activity, therefore they go to museums for “fun.” 

This is a trend we are delighted to see, as “fun,” for most people, has very positive associations with it.  Museums are, overall, "fun," and we hope that increasing numbers of people view them as “fun” experiences for themselves and for others, regardless of age. 

(O.K.  I have to insert a caveat here.  Sometimes I am with the sticks-in-the-mud who think museums shouldn’t be fun.  But note that I said sometimes.  Some topics that museums share are hugely important, but are not necessarily fun to explore.  For instance, I do not think the US Holocaust Memorial Museum is “fun,” but I do find it intellectually stimulating, emotionally moving, and extremely powerful, all of which are positive outcomes.  So there are times when “fun” is not necessarily what museums should be going for.  But excepting certain serious and important topics, fun in museums is important. - SW)

What do you think?  Do you have “fun” in museums?  Is “fun” an appropriate motivation for visitors?  Can we design for “fun” without sacrificing content?  We'd love to hear what you think.  To share, simply click on “comments” below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)

Does Museum Visitation Yield More College Degrees? Maybe (though we are saying that cautiously!).

We all want to find a direct link between childhood museum experiences and adult educational attainment and engagement with learning.  And if there is a link, how much of an impact do those museum visits have?  A couple of weeks ago, we were asked just that question, and to see what, if anything, our large-scale study of museum goers from last winter could tell us. 

(Fair warning:  this is a very dense post.  We are getting deep into the data, and are totally geeking out with this, including some theory, some caveats, and lots of details.  We tried to keep this as clear as possible, but please don’t hesitate to let us know if are confusing.  Additionally, these findings are in addition to our findings on school field trip data we posted last spring.)

To find out, we went into our database and ran a series of filters, isolating respondents by 1: educational attainment of the parent of the respondent and; 2:  how often they remembered visiting museums during their elementary-school years. We then compared within each segment (based on parental educational attainment) to see if there were significant differences in the respondents’ educational attainment that correlated with museum visitation.

Turns out, we found some interesting correlations that appear worthy of future study.

But first, a few caveats to keep in mind:

• We’re seeing correlation, not causation.  We don’t know if greater frequency of museum visits by children actually yield better-educated adults or not, and we could not control for other factors, such as parental involvement in a child’s education.
• We asked respondents to make their best guess at how often they visited museums during their elementary-school years.  There really is no way, in this study, to know absolutely for sure how often they visited as children, and we are, at times, relying upon memories that are up to 80 years old for our oldest respondents.
• We segmented by the educational attainment of the respondent’s parents.  That means, for a 20-something respondent, their Baby-Boomer parents.  And for a respondent over the age of 70 it could mean the educational attainment of a parent born as early as the 19^th century.  Point being, read the findings below carefully to keep straight the educational attainment of the respondent vs. that of the respondent’s parents. 
• Finally, keep in mind that our sample is of core museum goers, not the general public, so we cannot extrapolate beyond what the confines of what this data actually shows us.

So what are those correlations we found?

First off, once a parent has at least some college, we saw no statistical differences in educational attainment for their child, our respondent.  That is, there was no correlation between museum visitation patterns as children and eventual educational attainment for those whose parents had some college, those whose parents had college degrees, or those whose parents have graduate degrees.  Oh well.

But we did find some differences among those whose parents have less educational attainment.  For respondents whose parents have no diploma at all, and those whose parents have only a high school diploma, we saw significantly higher college attainment rates among those who remembered going to museums 10+ times/year versus those who remembered going to museums only “every few years.”  To be exact, 77% of the museum-going children went on to attain at least a college degree, versus only 66% of those who rarely went to museums. 

Additionally, the museum-going children were more likely to attain a graduate degree as well, over 40% of respondents versus less than a third of the infrequent museum-going children.

So, to sum up, the correlation we have unearthed ties museum attendance with greater odds of college degrees among adults whose parents have only attained high school diplomas or less. 

But it is only a correlation.  It will take a whole lot more research, beyond the scope of our current studies, to determine if there is any causation!

What do you think?  To share, simply click on “comments” below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)

Childhood Museum Memories and Adult Visitation: does museum type matter?

Over the past several weeks we have been sharing our preliminary results from our recent research into childhood museum memories and how they might affect adult perceptions of museums.  We fielded an excellent question that essentially asked, “Are adults who responded to a history-based museum more likely to remember visiting a history-based museum as children than other museum respondents?” 

To find out, we decided we wanted to go back and re-code by genre.  That is, all respondents were asked to take our survey by some museum.  We had already pre-sorted results so that respondents could be segmented into four main genres:  those who responded to an art museum, history-based museum, children’s museum, or science center.  (To find out more about the initial survey scope, click here.  To find out more about our methodology on coding memories, click here.)

But there was a big problem with simply coding by museum type in this way.  The samples are not the same.  That is, respondents from art museums and history-based museums tend to be older, meaning memories from science centers and children’s museums might be under-represented.  We needed to keep the samples consistent, so we ONLY pulled the memories of moms in their 30s and 40s, and coded them.  This segment was also large enough to code across all four museum genres.

So what did we learn?  The short answer is yes.  There is a correlation.

• History-based museum moms were 1.4x to 2.7 x more likely to have a history-based museum memory than moms from the other genres
• Art museum moms were 1.7x to 2.3x more likely to remember an art museum
• Science center moms were 1.5x more likely to remember a science museum

Yet when it came to children’s museums it wasn’t true.  That is, moms from children’s museums were not any more likely to remember children’s museums.  (This doesn’t totally surprise us, however, as relatively few respondents remember children’s museums in the first place.  See our initial post on memories, and scroll down to “initial findings” to find out why.)  But children’s museum moms were actually the most likely to remember science center, being 1.3x more likely than science center moms (and over 2x more likely than history-based and art museum moms). 

So yes.  There appears to overall be a correlation between the type of museum remembered in an early childhood museum memory, and the type of museum an adult engages with enough to be on an e-mail list and respond to a survey for.  Which means that creating memorable museum experiences for children is important for museums of all types!

What do you think?  What do you remember from your childhood museum experiences?  To share, simply click on "comments" below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to http://reachadvisors.typepad.com to add a comment.)

Career Choices: how museums sometimes make a difference

Last week we explored how museums can be fascinating places that spark in young children a desire to learn more.  This week we are going to take that even further, to a smaller group for whom museum visits truly transformed them, and their life paths. 

These memories, out of the thousands of memories we collected from adults in our recent research into early childhood memories of museum visits, are not numerous, but they do illustrate the tremendous capacity for museums to have a powerful effect on children.  They tell us how visiting museums truly changed the life course for children, giving them an interest that drove them into successful career choices as adults.  And, happily, these individuals specifically linked their career choice with childhood museum experiences.

 

• “The museum was the public museum in my city. I was fascinated by the fetuses at various ages and by the dioramas of native animals. I subsequently became an obstetrician with a love of nature.”
• “ . . . I was so awed that I have never forgotten it! The underground coal mine [at the Museum of Science and Industry] must have pushed me over the edge because I became a Geologist! :D”
• “5th birthday, NYC's Museum of Natural History.  Blew me away and I became an archaeologist.”
• “We visited a historic house.  I became an architect.”
• “Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, Pa.  Participated in Saturday classes as a school child. Rode the streetcar (trolley) from a steel town to get there.  It stimulated my interest in science and nature and was a primary reason I went on to get a PhD in Engineering.”

Now it should be noted that the number of memories that made a specific link between childhood museum experiences and eventual career choices are not significant in number.  But they do illustrate how important museums can be to young children, transforming them in critical ways.  And that is something museums should be proud of and strive to have happen with youngsters today.

What do you think?  What do you remember from your childhood museum experiences?  To share, simply click on "comments" below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to http://reachadvisors.typepad.com to add a comment.)

Photo Courtesy:  Atlanta History Center's Swan House

Awesome? Try Fascinating!

In our last post we said “museums are awesome.”

Today, they are fascinating as well.  Fascinating places that create a desire for young children to learn more.

What’s the difference?  At first glance, not a lot, but as we dug through the thousands of memories we collected from adults in our recent research into early childhood memories of museum visits, we realized we needed to separate the two.  Awesome memories were primarily about scale, the glitter, beautiful, or exotic, and being almost literally struck dumb by the coolness of something.

In contrast, memories that used words like “fascinating” were more about the kindling of interest in a subject, or the desire to learn more.  Yes, some memories were both fascinating and awesome, but today we are focusing in on those that were a bit more than that initial entrance into a grand space.  These memories indicated something happened of a more lasting nature.  Consider:

• “I remember the animal panoramas at the Museum of Science in Rochester, NY.  I wanted to learn more about the animals.  My parents discovered that I wanted to know more, so they signed me up for museum classes.”
• “Natural History Museum, loved it, remember best the enormous whale suspended from the ceiling, started me on a multi-year obsession with whales.”
• “European castle in Holland. My parents and I were with a tour group. I got somehow separated from the group and spent about 20 minutes roaming the place on my own. It was probably the foundation of my love of history and (late) medieval artifacts.”
• “Hayden Planetarium in Los Angeles. Wonderful experience. Increased interest in astronomy, science. Fascinated with star projector and subsequently tried to make my own with tin cans, etc.”

From enrolling in classes to making one’s own star projector (or trying to), these experiences sparked something in children that made them want to learn more – what every museum professional (and a lot of parents, too) hopes happens in their museum. 

Next week, we’ll see how some of these fascinating experiences truly transformed some children in lifelong ways.

What do you think?  What do you remember from your childhood museum experiences?  To share, simply click on "comments" below.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to http://reachadvisors.typepad.com to add a comment.)

Photo Courtesy:  Chabot Space and Science Center