Museum Audience Insight

Kids Make a Difference: Parental Status and Interpretation Preferences

In last week’s post on how interpretation preferences differ across museum genres, we further explored the results of our recent study of 40,000 museum-going households and saw that there were some similarities, and some differences, in how Core Visitors prefer to experience museums of different types.  Or, to be more precise, different audience segments prefer specific experiences at specific types of museums.  (We also saw a lively discussion about visiting “on our own” and the objects response, and encourage you to take a look at the comments for the post to learn even more.) 

To continue that analysis by life stage, let’s examine how parents and non-parents differ in their preferences, taking a peek into how three of the main museum types represented in the study (history-based museums, art museums, and science centers) come out through this filter.  (Children’s museums respondents are almost all parents, but see the science center section for some additional details there.)

History-Based Respondents: 

For those without children at home, the order of preference exactly mirrors the overall order we saw last week:

1. On our own (61% prefer)
2. By talking with staff (59%)
3. Viewing objects (50%)
4. Attending programs/events (48%)

Parents who have children at home respond in a similar order, with one notable exception:

1. By talking with staff (60%)
2. On our own (58%)
3. Hands on activities (55%)
4. Attending programs/events (43%)

 

Hands on activities, which scores a 26% preference for adults without children, is a preference for 55% of those with kids, while viewing objects drops off the list.  History-based museums courting both audiences have obvious challenges.

Science Center Respondents

We found the parent/non-parent effect applies here as well. Those without children at home indicated their top four preferred ways to experience the museum as:

1. On our own (63% prefer)
2. Hands on activities (53%)
3. By talking with staff (47%)
4. Viewing objects (46%)

For those with children at home:

1. Hands on activities (77% prefer)
2. On our own (62%)
3. Attending programs/events (42%)
4. By talking with staff (40%)

For science museum goers, parents prefer hands on activities by more than twenty percentage points compared with non-parents.  Also, parents at science centers report almost exactly the same preferences, to the same degree, as do parents at children’s museums, with the exception that the fourth place preference for parents at children’s museums is viewing objects (31%) while talking with staff moves to fifth place.

(It is interesting that non-parents at science centers value hands on activities almost as much as parents at history-based museums, implying that there are different expectations of hands-on activities at science centers than at history-based museums.  Yet another intriguing tidbit to examine more closely.)

Art Museum Respondents

No children at home:

1. On our own (73% prefer)
2. Viewing objects (49%)
3. Attending programs/events (45%)
4. Audio tours (40%)

For those with children at home:

1. On our own (70% prefer)
2. Attending programs/events (44%)
3. Viewing objects (44%)
4. Hands on activities (42%)

Interestingly, art museum visitors from this study, whether parents or not, both rate “on our own” as their strongest preference, and they rate it so strongly as to distance it from the second highest preference by twenty percentage points—a strength of preference we do not see in any of the other categories. Not surprisingly, we find that parents in this category, as in the others, place hands-on activities in their top four preferences, although it is the weakest preference here compared with the other museum genres.

For parents across museum types, we are still in the process of teasing out primary motivations for visiting museums, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, and examining how that makes a difference on the experiences preferred at museums.  There will be lots more to share in the coming weeks!

We’d love to hear your practical insights into these questions and any of the other insights you are uncovering as we roll out this massive data set.   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.)

Upcoming Museum Conversations: Results from 2010 National Visitor Survey

Been following our latest research?  Anxious to hear the major findings from our recent study of over 40,000 museum-going households?

Join us for one of our free Museum Conversations conference calls to learn more about the overall results.  We have two Museum Conversations coming up soon!

To Curiosity . . . and Beyond!

Wednesday, June 2, 1:00 EDT/10:00 PDT

This presentation looks at the overall results among family audiences and segments moms (and dads), examining their core motivations and museum-going behaviors in detail.  

Best for:  children’s museums, science centers, and museums seeking to grow family audiences

 

Cultural Fingerprints:  Motivations, Memories, and Museums

Wednesday, June 9, 1:00 EDT/10:00 PDT

A look at the overall results, comparing family audiences with adult audiences, then sharing an overview of results focusing on motivations for museum visits, experience preferences, and how childhood experiences affect adult visitation.

Best for:  museums of all types

 

Each call will last approximately one hour, with time for questions and comments. 

To participate in one or both free calls, simply e-mail Susie Wilkening at Susie (at) reachadvisors (dot) com. 

Space is limited, so RSVP soon.  Priority will be given to existing Reach Advisors’ clients and museums that participated in the project. 

Cannot make either call?  Let us know and we’ll share the recording.

Interpretation Preferences: How 40,000 museum-goers prefer to experience museums

Reach Advisors welcomes first-time blogger and newly-minted Reach Advisors Fellow Ken Bubp.  Ken is the COO of Conner Prairie Interactive History Park, and is delving into some of our research findings as well.  You can expect more posts from Ken over the coming months.

So, we’ve got some really rich data here about what sort of experiences people who already visit museums prefer.  

In last week’s post on how family audiences and adult audiences differ, we explored the results of our recent study of 40,000 museum-going households at a top level, in their relationship to different types of museums (art, science, history-based, children’s, etc.). It’s time to dive deeper into one of the most interesting questions—how people prefer to experience museums—and, specifically, to look through the lens of these different types of museums.

The responses are more than a little surprising.

First, we asked respondents how they prefer to experience museums and historic sites. Respondents were given a list of options, and could choose more than one (to see the full question and list, please scroll down to the bottom of this post).

Let’s look at this from two angles: which types of experiences have the highest priority within each type of museum, and how do the different types of experiences compare across genres?

First, what are the top four preferences for each type of museum?

 

	Type of museum visitor
	Art museum	Science museum	History-based museum	Children's museum
Preference #1	On our own (72% prefer)	Hands on activities (70% prefer)	On our own (60% prefer)	Hands on activities (76% prefer)
#2	Viewing objects/object-based exhibits (48%)	On our own (62%)	By talking with staff (59%)	On our own (61%)
#3	Attending programs/ events (45%)	By talking with staff (42%)	Viewing objects /object-based exhibits (48%)	Attending programs/ events (34%)
#4	Audio tours (38%)	Attending programs/ events (42%)	Attending programs/events (46%)	Viewing objects (32%)
	Gray shaded boxes = items rating at greater than 50% of respondents.

A few observations:

• Self-curated experiences:  Majorities of museum-goers across genres want to explore on their own, with little/no staff facilitation. This response appears in one of the top two boxes across every type, with notable consistency. In fact, no other preferred interpretation approach appears more than twice in the top two boxes. We found that art museum visitors had the strongest preference for experiencing the museum on their own, with nearly three-quarters saying so.
• History-based museums want to be on their own and to interact with staff. These visitors enjoy self-guided experiences, but they want staff around to spur those experiences on. Is this contradictory? Not necessarily when you consider that the granddaddy of all staff-based visitor experiences—the guided tour—appears nowhere in the top four for history-based museums (or anywhere else). This group wants staff to interact with, but not to direct their visit. Too many “I’m being held hostage by my guide!” bad prior experiences?
• For children’s museums, after the top two preferences, everything else is a distant preference. Visitors here want to guide their own visit, with lots of hands on activities—and nothing else really is comparably as important. As we posted previously, 88% of all respondents in this category were parents with children, which most certainly drives the responses here.
• Interacting with a computer: This does not appear in any of the genres in the top four. The highest score for this preference was with science centers, but still we found that fewer than 1 in 5 Core Visitors to science centers indicated this as a preference. This is consistent with our previous research: that overt computer technology at museums is generally unimportant to visitors (technology-as-technology, if you will), but integrated, seamless, or “unnoticed” technology holds a higher standing precisely because it is not overt. Parents in particular express a desire for a place where their kids can be unplugged.  Keep in mind, however, that this was a survey of Core Visitors to museums.  We do not know how less frequent visitors, or the general public, feels on this issue.

 

And here’s an unexpected finding: Viewing objects and object-based exhibits (including pieces of artwork, dioramas, or artifacts) does not seem to be that important to museums-goers, in their overall hierarchy of importance.

Let that sink in.

OK, perhaps it’s no real surprise that people visiting children’s museums prefer hands-on activities that engage their children, and that just less than 1 in 3 in this group expressed a preference for viewing objects. But the importance of viewing objects to those in all other categories is still less than 50%. Fewer than half of all respondents—no matter the museum type—said that viewing objects or object-based exhibits was important to them. Surprising. Before we collected the data, we expected this number to be at least 70% for art and history-based museums. This is a fascinating puzzle to try to unwind, especially in light of the centrality of objects in childhood museum memoires, so we’ll be exploring this further in future posts. 

The implications of all of this on museum work are huge, from strategy development to how we deliver day-to-day experiences. We’ll keep peeling back the onion here, and examine the interpretation preferences among family audiences and adult audiences next week.

-  Ken Bubp, 2010 Reach Advisors Fellow

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.)

 

Exact survey question:

How do you prefer to experience museums and historic sites?  (Choose the answers most important to you.)

• Guided tours
• By talking with staff, such as explainers, costumed interpreters, scientists, historians, or docents
• On our own, but with text panels and/or brochures or books
• Audio tours (including podcasts and cell phone tours)
• Through hands-on activities
• Viewing objects and object-based exhibits, like a piece of art, historic artifact, or diorama
• Watching theatre performances
• Through role-play
• By attending programs and events
• By watching video clips or movies
• By interacting with a computer, that has more information, databases, or games
• None of the above
• Other, please specify in 7 words or less

Sharing Research Results at AAM Annual Meeting

Anxious to hear the major findings from our recent study of over 40,000 museum-going households?

Join us at the AAM Annual Meeting in Los Angeles as we release three waves of research!

Museum Goers in America
Monday, May 24
7:30 - 8:30 a.m.
Los Angeles Convention Center
Open to all AAM registrants, but space is limited (come early!)
Look for location in the final program book

To Ultra-Curiosity . . . and Beyond!
Moms, Dads, Curiosity, and Museums
Monday, May 24
3:45 - 5:00 p.m.
Private session, just across the street from the LA Convention Center
Space is limited - RSVP to susie (at) reachadvisors.com to guarantee a space
Refreshments provided

Awesome Spaces and Sticky Stuff:  Childhood Museum Experiences and Museum-Going Behaviors
Tuesday, May 25
10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Private session, just across the street from the LA Convention Center
Space is limited - RSVP to susie (at) reachadvisors.com to guarantee a space
Refreshments provided

Don't forget to RSVP to Susie at susie (at) reachadvisors.com to guarantee a space at either of the private sessions.

 

Additionally, James Chung will be speaking at the following session:

Reaching Latino Audiences
Monday, May 24
2:15 - 3:30 p.m.

Los Angeles Convention Center
Look for location in the final program book

Don't forget to RSVP to Susie at susie (at) reachadvisors.com to guarantee a space at either of the private sessions.

Looking forward to seeing you in LA! 

Family Audiences and Adult Audiences: Big Differences

In some ways, museum-going households are pretty predictable.  That is, family audiences behave in certain, broad ways, while adult audiences behave in different, again broad, ways.

A couple of weeks ago we shared some initial demographic results from our 2010 National Visitor Survey of over 40,000 museum-going households.  But to get a snapshot of results, we can focus in on just one number:  the percentage of respondents that are parents of minor children.  While not a perfect metric (and there will always, always be museums whose results vary widely), generally, the more parents that respond, the more we’ll see a certain set of behaviors, and the more adults without minor children that respond, the more we’ll see a different set of behaviors.

So what did we find out?

First, overall, 43% of respondents are parents of minor children.  But that 43% masks wide divisions among the four main genres of museums participating.  For those, we found parents are:

• 88% of children’s museum respondents
• 68% of science center respondents
• 26% of history museum and historic site respondents
• 18% of art museum respondents

Based on those numbers, we would expect respondents from children’s museums and science centers to generally behave in one manner, while respondents to history-based and art museums to behave in another manner.  And, by and large, they do. 

• Children’s Museums and Science Centers.  Overall, we found that these museums, with their significant response base among parents, see more repeat visitors.  Parents tend to be more negative almost across the board when asked about programs, events, exhibits, etc.; they are significantly less likely to say their needs are met.  Respondents visit for family time, learning opportunities for children, for “fun,” or because their children love it.  They are also much more likely to visit zoos and aquariums and nature centers.  Less than half of respondents visit with a spouse or partner, and less than 10% visit museums alone.  They prefer hands-on experiences to anything else at museums.
  

• Art Museums and History-Based Museums.  In contrast, these museums, while generally not having quite so much repeat visitation, have visitors that are much more positive about the museum.   Indeed, they are almost 50% more likely to say their needs are met, and they are nearly two times more likely to say the museum helps bring the community together.  They visit out of personal curiosity and interest in the subject matter.  They are much more likely to visit a wider variety of museums.  They are significantly more likely to visit with a spouse or partner, with friends, or even alone.  Finally, they prefer to visit museums on their own (that is, without heavy staff facilitation), but are also more likely to want object-based experiences.

When we step back at look at these overall trends, we see that many parents tend to visit museums for extrinsic reasons, that is, for the enrichment and enjoyment of their children, while adults without minor children in their lives tend to visit for intrinsic reasons, such as their own curiosity and interest in the subject matter.  Those reasons end up setting the tone for the actual museum visit as they bring very different expectations, and yield very different levels of engagement.  Important differences that we’ll be exploring in more detail in the coming months.

Finally, some quirks in the data.  Of course these respondent pools are not monolithic.  There are some interesting twists in our results, including:

• Grandmothers of minor children are “swing voters” in that their responses to children’s museums and science centers tend to mirror those of parents, while grandmothers responding to history-based or art museums tend to mirror those of adults without minor children in their lives.  Grandfathers generally mirror the responses of adults without children all the time.
• Generation Y adults in their 20s, regardless of their parental status, are significantly more likely to say museums are “fun.”
• Art museum respondents visit almost as often as science center respondents.  Children’s museum respondents visit the most, while history-based museum respondents the least.
• Natural history museums appear to excel at engaging audiences of all ages, both families and adults.
• For some reasons, respondents from history-based museums do not visit botanical gardens or arboretums as much as art museum respondents.
  
• And, of course, some parents exhibit strong intrinsic motivations for visiting museums, as well as extrinsic motivations for their children (including nurturing intrinsic motivations for life-long learning within their children).  These parents, and how moms and dads differ in this, will be explored in tremendous detail in future posts.

In the next few weeks we’ll be focusing in on some of the results by museum genre in more detail before we change our viewing lens to respondents from the overall pool, examining them by their different life stages, their core motivations, and their childhood museum experiences. 

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.)

Pathways to Adult Engagement with Museums: The Importance of Field Trips

We are not really beating a dead horse here.  Sure, we have posted on our blog not once, but twice on the value of school field trips. 

Well, we are going to add even deeper research to the conversation now.

Museum educators know in their guts that school field trips are important, and that those experiences have long-term impact on museum visitation as children become adults.

In our latest survey of over 40,000 museum-going households, we found some intriguing data points that support those gut feelings.  In this study, we delved into childhood memories of visiting museums, asking respondents to think back to their earliest and strongest museum memories.  Respondents were specifically asked who they were with in that memory.

Overall, 56% remembered visiting with their mothers, 44% with their fathers, and 34% remembered school field trips (respondents could indicate as many choices as appropriate, but the only other significant response was siblings at 28%). 

Clearly, the best-trod path to museum engagement for adults is visiting with their immediate families as children.  But the 34% remembering school field trips is nothing to sneeze at.  In fact, it is huge. A third of our Core Visitors came to museums via school field trips.

Our respondents are, as we have shared on our blog, overwhelmingly well-educated, affluent, and white.  But what about minorities?  Or children from households with lower educational attainment?

To find out, we looked at minority respondents and those whose parents had lower educational attainment (because, yes, we asked that too).

Turns out, school field trips may be more important than we even suspected.

Let's first unpack the parental educational attainment.  Respondents were asked what the highest level of education at least one of their parents had attained.  When we compared the results by this response, we found that the higher the parental educational attainment, the more likely parents figured in the memory and the less likely school field trips were the driver.  In fact, respondents who had at least one parent with an advanced degree were 2.3 times more likely to remember visiting museums with a parent than those whose parents had not graduated from high school. 

The reverse was true as well, as respondents whose parents did not graduate from high school  were two times more likely to remember a school field trip as their earliest or strongest museum memory than those who had a parent with a graduate degree, as seen in the following chart shows: 

In short, for children who grow up in households with lower educational attainment, school field trips are an incredibly powerful and important pathway to future engagement with museums as adults, figuring in nearly half of memories for those whose parents have the lowest educational attainment.

We see similar patterns when we examine the data by the race and/or ethnicity of respondents. 

And so we find that for minority children school field trips are also an incredibly powerful and important pathway to future engagement with museums as adults.  Indeed, nearly half of African American respondents remembered a school field trip. 

Additionally, the trend may be accelerating.  For example, Hispanic respondents under 30 were significantly more likely to remember school field trips than older Hispanics, indicating that school field trips are increasingly important.

This makes the recent cuts of school field trips by school districts, and even by some museums, even more distressing.  If museums truly want to engage audiences that are diverse and representative of their communities, then school field trips simply must not only be retained, but expanded to ensure that children who may not otherwise visit museums do so.  It is a significant pathway to raising engaged, life-long, curious, and diverse learners who love museums.  Cutting them off cuts off opportunities for children . . . and for future generations of potential museum goers. 

What would we love to see happen?  We would love to a see a major push for significant funding for school field trips to museums so that school districts were not worried about bussing or fees (we would also love funding for museums to hire additional staff members to solely focus on presenting the most exciting, awesome, and sticky museum experiences possible for schoolchildren).  Because school field trips are not a luxury.  They are absolutely crucial for children and for museums, now and in the future.  

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.)

 

Photo:  Erie Maritime Museum