The latest from our team
Climate Solutions: How Audience Research Helped Us Support Visitors in Envisioning Alternate Climate Realities
In this article, Katie Chandler and co-authors Jen Kretser and Stephanie Ratcliffe explain how early audience research and evaluation shaped The Wild Center's strategies and messaging as it developed a new exhibition focused on climate change solutions.
What is the Value of Audience Research?
My colleague recently asked for suggestions on resources to share with a client about audience research. We had no shortage of suggestions for resources about conducting audience research, but we lacked resources about the value of audience research for museum practitioners.
How Do You Create Meaningful and Fulfilling Community Partnerships?
What makes a community partnership effective? How do you build genuine, reciprocal relationships with your visitors and local organizations? How do you work toward a common goal with your local community? I have been invested in these questions throughout my career—as an intern at museums and now as a researcher at a museum evaluation firm.
Why You Should Evaluate Your Long-Standing K-12 Museum Programs
From my years as a museum educator, I know well that program evaluation is one of those things that we know is important, but often find hard to prioritize. Program managers juggle a million responsibilities just to get a program off the ground, and it can feel overwhelming to also have to dedicate time and resources towards assessing a program’s impact once it’s running.
Are You Sure That’s a Good Idea?
Museum professionals are the original content creators. They are extremely passionate and possess special knowledge and expertise. These characteristics, in combination with museums’ collections, are a perfect recipe for idea generation. I’ve been in many meetings where the energy exuding from museum professionals about potential new programs, exhibitions, apps, or other initiatives is captivating and contagious.
Making a Difference: Articulating Audience Outcomes
In our work at Kera, we often ask museum practitioners to articulate audience outcomes as a starting point for planning and evaluation. Audience outcomes are the difference a museum intends to make in its audiences’ lives through an experience (like an exhibition or a program).
How Museums Can Harness TikTok To Diversify Their Audiences
With a majority of TikTok users belonging to Gen Z, the platform can be a great way to pull in younger, diverse audiences that may not be as involved in or aware of museum happenings. Yet, social media moves at a hyper fast pace, with new trends appearing every day and heavily saturated feeds. Understandably, getting started on TikTok may seem daunting.
A Cautionary Tale About Audiences and Assumptions
Most museums have a generalized notion of their audiences. They may broadly refer to “families,” “empty nesters,” “locals,” and “tourists.” But those broad categories tell us very little about what audiences value, care about, and believe in.
Can We Please Stop Saying that Museums are “Trusted”?
It’s been about a year since the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and Wilkening Consulting published “Museums and Trust 2021.” The report states that museums continue to be regarded as “highly trustworthy.” This statement made me uncomfortable last year and continues to bother me now.
Why Visiting a Museum Exhibition is More like Taking a Hike than Reading a Book
Too often, I see that exhibitions are developed in a way that assumes visitors will experience them like a book. However, results from hundreds of summative exhibition evaluations tells me that visiting an exhibition is more analogous to taking a hike than reading a book. Here are four ways museum visitors experience exhibitions like hikes rather than like books.
How Can Education Programs Help Bridge the Digital Divide?
Ebony Bailey and Kerry Sautner explore how museums sought to address the digital divide made deeper by the pandemic, and how ongoing commitment to access, equity, and partnerships allowed educators to shift in new ways to support their regular audiences.
Gen Z are Values-driven: What does this mean for Cultural Institutions?
Gen Z is values-driven and cultural institutions will have to put their values at the forefront in order to connect with and engage directly with this generation.
When Disaster Strikes: Assistance by Museums Nearby
Emlyn recalls how Liberty Science Center, located across the lower Hudson from Manhattan and where he was President & CEO from 1996-2011, assisted the next-of-kin and surrounding community in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on and after September 11, 2001.
Gen Z are Identity Crafters: What does this mean for Cultural Institutions?
As cultural institutions pivot towards serving this generation of visitors, it seems like a particularly salient time to query how this change in demographics might affect strategy, planning, and outreach for visitor engagement.
Gen Z are Investigators: What Does This Mean for Cultural Institutions?
Summer is here, and with it, a new guest blogger series! Today we are excited to share a new post by our friend Sadiya Akasha of Sitara Systems. Sadiya is a researcher, product designer, and expert on Gen Z (people born between 1995 and 2010). In this summer series, Sadiyawill make the case for how and why engaging Gen Z is critical and share research-based insights that cultural institutions should noteif they want to survive and thrive.
Collaboration, Expertise, and Museum Education: Reflections from a COVID-era Furlough
In early April I returned to work after a three month furlough. While being furloughed was not welcome news in an already challenging year for the field of museum education, this period away from my job as an art museum educator gave me ample time to think deeply and reflectively, something that feels in short supply when carrying out my regular duties and schedule.
Thinking About Art: The Role of Single-visit Art Museum Fieldtrips Programs in Visual Arts Education
In this article, Amanda and Stephanie share the results of two large-scale research studies that examined the impact of art museums’ field trips on K-12 students (pre-pandemic) and discuss how art museums’ teaching supports student empathy and creative thinking.
Five Ways Evaluators Can Further Accessibility Efforts in Museums
At RK&A, we have been exploring and trying ways to bring accessibility to the forefront of our evaluation work to help museums become more accessible and inclusive for visitors with disabilities. While this is an ongoing process, this blog covers some of the things we are doing.
Social and Emotional Learning is Imperative and in Museum Educators’ Wheelhouse: Part 2
There are other ways art museum educators can play a critical role in promoting social and emotional learning, all the while attending to museum’s audience-focused Diversity Equity Access and Inclusion (DEAI) efforts during this time.
Social and Emotional Learning is Imperative and in Museum Educators’ Wheelhouse
Evaluators know the power of questions. A good question can unlock so much knowledge. And that is what happened for me when I was helping my daughter completing a Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) assignment given to her grade by the school counselor.