Evaluating Multiple Audience Outcomes of a School Visit Program at a University Art Museum

Program Strategy and Evaluation
Written By Cathy Sigmond

Client: Jack & Shanaz Langson Institute & Museum of California Art | Location: Irvine, CA | Funding: The Hearst Foundations

 
 

We measured the impact of a multi-visit school partnership program at the Langson Institute for California Art, a university art museum on the University of California, Irvine campus.

OVERVIEW

In 2023, we partnered with the Jack & Shanaz Langson Institute & Museum of California Art (Langson IMCA) to design a two-year evaluation to assess the impact of its new multi-visit school partnership program. 

Langson IMCA staff were curious to learn about K-12 student outcomes, as well as hear more about the experiences of their Museum Art Educators (MAE’s), a new UCI student position that was created to support the multi-visit program.

APPROACH

We designed an evaluation over two years that triangulated several different data sets in order to gain a full picture of the school visits program and the MAE experience:

  • Teacher Diary Study/Interviews: We spoke with participating teachers to understand their perceived student outcomes from the program, and suggestions for improvement.

  • MAE Interviews/Focus Group: We also spoke with MAE’s to hear from them directly about their motivations for joining the program and any challenges they might be experiencing.

  • Student Assessments: We administered nearly 250 standardized student assessments over two years to gauge growth in student outcomes around critical thinking, interpretation, and observation skills.

  • Museum Visit Observations: We designed an observation protocol for MAE’s to implement onsite during school visits to the museum. This data was incorporated into our analysis.

CLIENT TAKEAWAYS

After Year 1 we learned that students were demonstrating increased confidence, critical thinking skills, and comfort making art. Teachers particularly liked the multi-visit format, appreciating that they could develop deeper relationships with museum staff and reinforce the program’s content over multiple sessions. Teacher and MAE data also showed that K-12 students enjoyed learning from the MAE’s, and found them fun, knowledgeable, and relatable.

Langson IMCA staff made significant shifts in the program for Year 2 per our recommendations, including shifting one of the three sessions from Zoom to an in-person classroom visit. They also listened to MAE advice to streamline communications.

Following Year 2 of the evaluation, we found that the multi-visit program was not only supporting K-12 student participants, but also serving as a bridge between Langson IMCA, UCI students, and the broader community. Further, participating teachers came away with a newfound appreciation for incorporating art into their curriculum; while this experience was new for some of them, they could see the positive impact it had on their students and they were eager to keep doing it.

Cathy Sigmond

Cathy brings many years of experience in education and experience design to her role as Head of Strategy at Kera Collective. 

Having previously worked in a variety of educational settings, Cathy is driven by her constant fascination and delight at how people make discoveries about the familiar and the unfamiliar. 

Cathy loves helping to shape experiences that spark curiosity and make a difference in people’s lives. She particularly enjoys the rapid, iterative nature of design-based research and the deep insights that come from qualitative research, especially on projects exploring interactions with the digital and built environments. 

Cathy shares her passion for experience design research widely and regularly guest lectures for graduate programs, including the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Exhibition and Experience Design Program and the Pratt Institute’s School of Information. Cathy served as the co-chair of the Museum Computer Network’s Human-Centered Design special interest group from 2018-2021.

Outside of work, you can usually find Cathy playing soccer, thrifting, or making her way through her large cookbook collection. 

Cathy’s favorite museum experiences are immersive; she will always vividly remember walking through the giant heart at the Franklin Institute, being surrounded by birds at the Peabody Essex Museum, and hearing centuries-old instruments come to life at the Museum of Musical Instruments. 

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