“Why don’t we just do a survey?” If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. Surveys are the first instinct for many museums seeking to learn about their audiences (and I’m sure the same is true across many industries).

When analyzing qualitative data, our end goal is always to provide a sense of how much or how little an idea or trend came up within the whole sample. Sometimes, it’s very clear—people either say “yes, I liked this” or “no, I didn’t like this,” and there were no overlapping reasons why. But most of the time, it’s less straightforward and more nuanced. We have to interpret what people say based on many factors.

Observations have always been one of my favorite ways to collect data. Watching how people move about and behave in a space is inherently addictive—there is so much you can discover if you pay close attention to what is happening around you, and it feels a bit like going undercover as a spy.

This post will help you determine—if indeed you are conducting human subjects research—whether it is exempt from IRB review.

This third post defines criteria for human subjects research by breaking down the term “human subjects research.”

In my first post in this IRB 101 series, I described what IRBs are and why they exist. IRBs exist to protect research participants. In this second post, I focus on risks to research participants.

My hope in leading the IRB 101 workshop and writing these posts is to help others overcome their nervousness about IRBs. Let’s start with a shared, foundational understanding of IRB.

Based on my experience presenting quantitative results to museums, I came up with a list of 10 things to know about quantitative results so you can better assess their meaningfulness.

Figuring out sample size for interviews can sometimes feel trickier than for quantitative methods, like questionnaires because there aren’t tools like sample size calculators to use. However, there are several important questions to consider that can help guide your decision-making.

Sampling is a very important consideration for all types of data collection. For audience research and summative evaluations in particular, it is important that the sample from which data is collected represents the actual population.

Sample size is a standard question we are asked, particularly for questionnaires since we will be using statistical analyses. Read about what we recommend and why.

I’d like to piggy-back on the slow movement and talk about Institutional Review Board (IRB) and school district review, which is Slow with a capital ‘s’—for better or worse.