Museum Evaluation Methods Roundup

As someone who joined the museum evaluation field relatively recently, there was a lot to learn about evaluative methods as they relate to museums and cultural institutions. Over the years, Kera Collective has published so much insight detailing how we approach our work, so let’s recap some of our favorite resources on our Learning Hub about evaluation methods!

Surveys

Oftentimes, a survey administered to visitors when they’re exiting a gallery is the first method that comes to mind when you think of evaluation. What could be easier and faster than a list of questions that can be answered by a visitor on the spot or in their own time? However, designing a survey is complex, and sometimes, it isn’t best suited for your objectives. There are some important questions you should ask yourself before you land on a survey as your evaluative method, such as why you’re doing this research or by when do you need results. Sampling is another question that many of our clients have—how many participants is enough for a sample? It’s important to think through how your sample represents your population.

Observations

We also frequently utilize observations as a versatile method, ranging from timing and tracking observations to scan observations to naturalistic observations, which can be helpful for a museum to understand where visitors are spending the most time in a designated area, what behaviors visitors are engaging in, and can provide important context. Sometimes instead of observing visitors as they visit a museum exhibition, we observe museum programs. There are many different things to consider when you’re observing a museum program, especially power dynamics between the observer and observed.

Interviews

Interviews are a qualitative method that can help you provide context to your evaluation, whether that’s an interview with a family about a children's exhibit or interviews with community members about a new program. With any sort of onsite interview, there are a variety of factors to consider, from how to recruit visitors to how to end the interview. Or, if you’re prototyping some sort of exhibition material, open-ended interviews can help you embrace an adaptive, going with the flow mindset.

Tailored Strategies

Sometimes these traditional methods I’ve described so far aren’t quite the right fit, and we need a more customized approach to gather richer insights. One such qualitative method that we are really loving is walk and talk interviews! With a walk and talk interview, we are able to collect visitor feedback in real time while walking with them through a pre-planned route or one led by the visitor themselves. Walk and talk interviews have so many unique benefits that you can check out by reading this post.

Narrative case studies are another great approach to qualitative data. Case studies let us tell a deeper story about our client and the communities they serve. They can be a unique way to offer rich context to evaluations through the lens of museum staff or community members. Using case studies also allows evaluators to utilize approaches like oral history and storytelling. We are seeing more and more clients wanting case studies as part of their evaluations!

There are so many more resources about museum evaluation that you can check out on Kera’s Learning Hub. These are just some of the resources that helped me as an emerging museum evaluator!