In this article, Cathy Sigmond describes the principles that underlie formative evaluation, showcases the range of ways museum practitioners can integrate formative evaluation into the exhibition development process, and considers how we might evolve and strengthen our traditional approaches to formative evaluation.

Cathy Sigmond breaks down Amber Case’s eight principles of calm technology and explores how museum professionals can apply them to designing museum experiences – both analog and digital – that best serve visitors.

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.

This article highlights key findings of our research, focusing on emerging approaches to digital experiences for children in museums, as well as visitor and stakeholder perceptions of and concerns about digital experiences.

This article describes critical appraisal, a method applied by us to help a museum’s education department make data-driven decisions about programming.

This article explores how the National Museum of Natural History and Kera Collective analyzed 10 years of museum evaluation to build the institution’s accumulated knowledge by identifying and understanding trends over time.

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.

This article presents the results of audience research at a children’s museum in Philadelphia. The research focuses on understanding the parental role in a children’s museum experience.

This article describes how the statistical procedure K-means cluster analysis can be used to deconstruct the complex nature of museum visitors.