Evaluating Visitors’ Experiences with Hands-on Natural History Collections at the Field Museum
Client: Field Museum | Location: Chicago, IL
We measured the impact and effectiveness of the Field Museum’s Grainger Science Hub and Discovery Squad Carts, two experiences facilitated by educators and trained volunteers.
OVERVIEW
In 2018, we partnered with the Field Museum to evaluate its Grainger Science Hub–a multi-function space with exhibits, touchable elements, and hands-on activities–and Discovery Squad carts–large mobile displays where volunteers use an object to help visitors explore like a scientist and learn about the natural world.
Facilitated experiences can be an important strategy for museums to deepen visitor engagement, and our evaluation explored the quality of interactions between visitors and facilitators of these two programs.
APPROACH
We used qualitative and quantitative methods to get a holistic picture of visitors’ experience, including:
Timing and tracking observations to document time spent and visitor behaviors indicative of engagement
In-depth interviews to document visitors’ conversations and meaning-making during programs
CLIENT TAKEAWAYS
We found that visitors’ length of interaction with facilitators was brief overall but that they typically spent more time engaging at the Grainger Science Hub, which suggested greater potential for deep exploration afforded through the Science Hub experience. Yet, visitors were also skipping the Science Hub because they did not always recognize its purpose.
The Field Museum made changes with the purpose of deepening visitors’ engagement. One change was to the messaging and visuals around the Science Hub to increase the number of visitors who stopped. The other change was to the training provided to Discovery Squad Cart facilitators to increase their confidence engaging with visitors.
