By Lynn D. Dierking, Jessica J. Luke,
Kathryn A. Foat, and Leslie Adelman
This article was published in Museum News, November/December, 2001.
More and more families are taking advantage of a veritable explosion in out-of-school learning. On a typical day, a family might surf the Internet to track down a local library book, attend a play, watch a nature documentary on television, or interact with exhibitions at the local science center. These are all free-choice learning experiences—self-directed, voluntary, and guided by the learner’s needs and interests—learning that families engage in With innovative exhibitions and programs, museums are trying to meet the increasing interest and needs of free-choice learning families. They also want to build relationships with new audiences, communities, and families who have not traditionally used museums for free-choice learning. What motivates families to use museums for free-choice learning? What types of museum experiences most effectively engage families and support their learning? How are these experiences influencing families, and in what ways?
Motivating Families
Much of what people learn is mediated through group social interaction, including conversation, gestures, emotions, and observation. In fact, the very first learning group that an individual collaborates with is her family. Family learning is a process that incorporates the social bonds that exist between relatives and the family’s experience with objects, ideas, and situations, becoming in essence, the family narrative. Through conversation and observation, knowledge and understanding are constructed by the family, and this learning is incorporated into the family narrative, creating shared meanings between family members. Institutions like museums also serve a larger sociocultural function by fostering communities of learners. Much of the way humans make sense of the world is through sociocultural interaction with others, what social psychologists call distributed meaning-making or collaborative learning.
Our research and that of others suggests that many families perceive museums as places where they can spend quality time and, ultimately, learn together. Clearly, this is an implicit not an explicit goal. As a colleague likes to quip, few families wake up on Saturday morning and say, “Hey, let’s go to the aquarium today and learn about teleost fish!” However, interviews with parents in museums demonstrate that they perceive these settings as “good places to take children to learn,” and several studies support the idea that families use museums as socially “mediated” learning environments.1 In one study, children indicated that they often prefer to visit museums with their families rather than school groups, because they get to look at more things of interest to them personally and talk to their families about what they are doing and seeing.2
Still, for several years, museum staff have been concerned that museum-visiting families are not representative of the whole population. Many families, for reasons only partially known, do not use museums to meet their free-choice learning needs. However, our recent and ongoing research suggests that once these families have the opportunity to participate in and feel comfortable with museum-based programs, they begin to see the museum as a prime resource for free-choice learning.
Families Exploring Science Together (FEST) is a new (2000) museum-community collaboration between four Philadelphia area science institutions—the New Jersey State Aquarium, Academy of Natural Sciences, Franklin Institute Science Museum, and Zoological Society of Philadelphia. It is designed to provide science experiences that will stimulate, encourage, and enrich families’ interest, learning, and involvement in science, particularly families who do not traditionally see museums as such resources. To date we have gathered formative feedback about the program from more than 500 families. Many indicated that they perceived the museum as a place to learn, and parents and/or significant adults also felt that the program provided an opportunity to spend quality time with their children.3 Findings from the Girls at the Center (G.A.C.) project confirm this.4 G.A.C. was a collaboration between the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. and the Franklin Institute that encouraged girls to take an interest in science. It also provided their mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or other significant adults with the skills they needed to support that interest at home. Like FEST families, once the girls and adults were exposed to the museum in comfortable and fun ways, they realized that it is an ideal place for family learning.
As museums increasingly attempt to attract families from these new audiences, we cannot make assumptions about whether these families attend museums or are involved in other aspects of free-choice learning. Data collected for Tripod—a collaboration between the Miami Museum of Science and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Greater Miami designed to nurture adult involvement in children’s science, math, and technology education—indicates that many children and adults had visited the museum previously; and a few were frequent users.5 Many families also visited the library regularly or had ways, not necessarily at home, to access the Internet. The adults knew their children were interested in learning and were looking for innovative ways to support that interest. Similarly, we found that many FEST families were museum-goers and perceived that the museum offered them a resource for learning together.
The greatest challenge is helping families from new audiences recognize that programs such as FEST, G.A.C., and Tripod, (and the museums associated with them) can provide a fun and comfortable way to share quality time together. G.A.C.’s most effective recruitment strategies were ones that tapped into the community early on and used an existing communication infrastructure—such as a parent involvement committee or an existing family program at a community-based organization—to get the word out.6 Project staff also identified key community members who could serve as spokespeople for the program.
However, we learned two important lessons when we conducted the evaluation. First, recruitment (and certainly sustained participation!) for these programs is a long-term, ongoing endeavor. It takes time to build trusting relationships with communities that are not familiar with museums and have no history of using museums for learning. It is crucial to build enough time into projects and have the resources to sustain the institution’s and the participant’s involvement. Second, the best partners were those organizations that shared the museum’s goal of improving the quality of life for families and had a desire to collaborate in meaningful ways to accomplish that goal. Such organizations already understood what might motivate a family and had an infrastructure for involving families and significant adults in their activities. In the case of Tripod, Big Brothers and Big Sisters learned that the museum could be a place for fun and meaningful outings with their Little Brothers and Sisters.7
Engaging Families
Since by its very nature, family learning is a collaborative process, it follows that the most effective types of family experiences—whether exhibitions, programs, or distance-learning Web sites—are those that promote and facilitate social interaction and collaboration. Creating meaningful and engaging programs or exhibitions requires an awareness of family learning styles. Research suggests that families engage in different types of learning in museums.8 Some are highly collaborative, with the family members staying together and interacting at each exhibit as a group. Other families split up and interact with exhibitions independently, meeting every now and then to talk about what they are experiencing or to show other family members what they have done.
Collaborative Learning
Increasingly, many museum programs are focusing on building long-term relationships with families, particularly those from new communities. Repeat, sustained participation in museum programs significantly enhances the learning potential and positive influences of these experiences on peoples’ lives.9 But the fact that such participation is even possible needs to be clearly communicated to families. For example, initially girls and significant adults were not making repeat visits to the G.A.C. program. Interviews and observations indicated that participants did not realize it was a year-long program, and not a series of one-day sessions like many others they had attended. Staff worked to create a more accurate identity for the program, resulting in sustained participation at most of the 31 sites around the country.
Findings also suggest that initially parents and/or significant adults can be reached more effectively with a message that describes the broad goals of the program, such as “an excellent opportunity to spend quality time with children” or “to encourage a child’s love of learning.” Narrower learning goals, such as “to enhance a child’s learning in art or science,” may not be as effective. For example, we had much more success during one project when we called events “Family Activity Nights” rather than “Family Science Nights.” Such an approach can be tough for the discipline-focused museum community, but it is an important reality to keep in mind. Once families participate in a program and find it enjoyable and rewarding, however, focusing on the discipline of the program can be a real asset, helping parents understand their children’s strengths in these areas. This is confirmed by evaluation findings from FEST, G.A.C., Tripod, and OurStory, an ongoing program at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History designed to develop children and adults’ literacy levels and interest in history. “I never realized my child was so curious and asked such good questions,” said one parent. “He really likes history and is good at it!” said another.10
Incentives, such as prizes, t-shirts, badges, patches, etc., also can sustain participation in programs. It is even possible to choose incentives that will enhance the goals of the project. Families participating in G.A.C. received items from the Franklin’s gift shop that they could use to continue their exploration of science together. Participants in the OurStory project were given history-related nonfiction books to read together at home.
Communication approaches also can influence a program’s effectiveness. Recent neuroscience research suggests that human brains are constructed to gather and process information in meaningful sociocultural ways, and supports the use of narrative forms in programming—stories, songs, poems, dance, and/or music.11 This research particularly pertains to children, but probably is relevant for adults as well. There is also a great deal of evidence that scripts or stories help build mature, long-term memory,12 as people use them to make meaning and find significance in the events they experience.13 These stories often become a part of the family’s narrative.
Rich narratives and stories also have an emotional impact, a vital component of learning and problem solving that facilitates engagement.14 Consequently capitalizing on emotion is an important key to successful educational programs and exhibitions. Fun, excitement, joy, mystery, surprise, and sadness are all emotional experiences that can and should be considered fundamental constituents of learning and utilized in program design.
In 1996, Minda Borun and a group of researchers in the Philadelphia/Camden Informal Science Education Collaborative (PISEC) investigated family learning in museums, identifying seven characteristics of family-friendly exhibitions that support collaborative learning and social interaction.15 These characteristics included designing the space to accommodate several individuals, appealing to multiple learning styles, being readable and relevant, and providing varied outcomes to foster group discussion. The PISEC researchers demonstrated that experiences designed to facilitate social interaction often resulted in learning and meaning-making. The learning was related to specific social behaviors, which included asking and answering questions, commenting on the exhibition, and reading the labels aloud. Although families talked about topics described in labels, no label text was read in its entirety if it obstructed individuals’ ability to enjoy and maintain social relationships with their companions.
In “The Family in the Museum: Learning How They Learn” (Museum News, November/December 2000), Anne Henderson and Susy Watts describe one clearly successful strategy for engaging families—the development of exhibition spaces where small groups can work and interact together outside the flow of the larger museum. These spaces offer families a chance to gain a deeper understanding of a topic by providing them with opportunities to touch and examine objects, documents, and other materials.
The activities in these spaces all involve learning by doing, and the range of family experiences often requires a rethinking of the roles of staff and volunteers. In essence, staff become facilitators rather than disseminators of information, supporting families’ learning rather than directing it. Such a shift necessitates changes in the training and mentoring of staff and volunteers. Good facilitators require training, not just in the content, but in the art of communication. Other effective communication strategies include providing situations in which motivated novices can collaborate with knowledgeable mentors, and creating opportunities for group dialogue and interaction, especially when they extend beyond the initial museum experience—for example, providing lists of questions or activities that families can pursue at home.
When any exhibition is designed with collaborative learning in mind, such learning can be greatly facilitated in all parts of the museum.16 Effective design strategies include providing avenues for adults to access and feel comfortable with the content or to interact and talk with their children about the content and the experience. Research suggests that parents are far more willing to take advantage of in-house library materials, family activity kits, and other opportunities if they know that these materials are available and understand their role in providing assistance to their children.17 A study conducted in the DNA Zone gallery at the St. Louis Science Center revealed that for family learning to occur, parents needed to know how to interact with and talk to their children about exhibition topics.18
Encouraging and facilitating social interaction is also an important feature of technology-based experiences in exhibitions. Very little is yet understood about how families actually use computers and the Internet in museums. However, preliminary research on the New Mexico Natural History Museum’s Web site revealed that a third of all users were accessing the site from their homes in social groups, many of these family groups, in their free time.19 This suggests that they might do so in the museum as well.20 Designing the experience so that it permits, perhaps even encourages, collaborative learning might mean making the area around a computer large enough to accommodate several people, providing several stools in front of computer work stations to foster interaction, and creating computer activities that require the participation of more than one person.
Influencing Families
Research suggests that museums enhance the attitudes and interest of families and have the capacity to facilitate their understanding of a wide range of complex concepts in science, art, and history. For example, after visiting the “Aliens” exhibition at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, families learned much about the solar system, including details about the planets, concepts related to weight, mass and the scale of the solar system, and the feel of gravity.21 This learning both reinforced their previous experiences and enhanced their existing understanding of the cosmos. Research also suggests that broader outcomes, such as sharing interests and discovering how to assist and learn and collaborate with others, are important results of visits to museums. Summative evaluations of programs like G.A.C. and Tripod indicate that, in some cases, they even enriched family relationships to some degree, changing not just what adults and children did together at the museum, but also how they interacted and communicated at other times.
In a recently completed longitudinal study of 324 G.A.C. participants, findings suggested that the program provided valuable and much-needed opportunities for girls and adults to engage in positive experiences in science exploration and discovery.22 (This program is focused on science exploration; however, we have observed similar results in art- and history-related programs.) Among repeat participants, most could discuss science in terms of broad, general concepts and were able to describe the process of science, using terms like “study,” “experiment,” and “explore.” The number of girls contemplating science-related careers rose and, regardless of their aspirations, most indicated that knowledge of science would be important for their careers. Many were quite articulate about the way science skills, such as observing, figuring things out, and making predictions, would benefit them in the future.
Preliminary case study data for Tripod reinforced how these programs can influence the nature of children’s interest in science, enhancing their confidence and also shaping their attitudes towards science at school. The adults also noticed that children’s participation in Tripod resulted in increased interest in science and increased confidence and creativity, giving the youngsters the confidence to build upon and connect with science in their everyday lives:
“I don’t like reading about [science] in books. I like [a] more hands-on approach, field trips, like Tripod. I would like to do more exploring. . . . I want to be an engineer when I grow up. A computer engineer. Because I know when I get older, computers will have a lot to do with the future. . . . I like science because it has a lot to do with life, living, and technology. Sometimes I find science boring in school; I don’t like learning out of textbooks.” 12-year-old Little Sister
“I’ve learned [through Tripod] that my son has an avid like for science. I never expected him to really like it, but his interest in math has increased too. He’s more creative. And he applies what he’s done at Tripod to his schoolwork. . . . Apparently he’s one of those learners that learn by doing things. It’s definitely changed his whole mode. He says he wants to be a scientist, he wants to go to the moon.” Mother about her 5-year-old son
What is equally important is that these programs also are positively influencing adults. G.A.C. helped adults understand that it is important for girls to learn about science and also boosted adults’ confidence in their own creative talents as they helped their young partners.23 When asked what they would do if a child asked them a science question, many of the adults participating in G.A.C. for the first time said, “I don’t know.” But the responses of the adults who attended G.A.C. more than once included going to the library, reading a book, using the Internet, or exploring the idea together. Like their young partners, the adults had learned more about how to engage in free-choice learning.
There is evidence that these programs can influence other aspects of participant learning. In addition to positively changing children’s and adults’ perceptions of history and museums, a goal of the OurStory program is to improve children and adults’ attitudes toward reading, particularly history-related nonfiction books. Findings from an internal evaluation suggest that families enjoyed reading the books together as well as interacting with “real” objects and other primary sources at the museum.24 There is also long-term evidence that children and adults sustained an interest in objects they had seen at the museum. A few families even planned family trips and vacations to places they had read about. The National Museum of American History’s The Story in History has goals similar to those of the OurStory program. Despite its school-based focus, families found the program beneficial.25 As one of the parents said, “If the parents aren’t into it, the kids aren’t into it. . . .”
We also are collaborating with Children’s Museum of Indianapolis in an effort to better understand family learning. This Family Learning Initiative is investigating nine learning dimensions including, knowledge and skills; facilitating interests; finding out about one’s family; and discovering how to use the museum as a learning resource. Our goal is to develop a Family Learning model that can contribute to understanding in the field and guide the facilitation and evaluation of museum-based family learning. By continuing to try to understand and document what meaningfully motivates and engages families of all kinds, museums will only strengthen their ability to facilitate family learning and, ultimately, lifelong learning.
References
1. Chase, R. A. “Museums as Learning Environments,” Museum News 54, no. 1: 36-43.
2. Jensen, N. “Children’s Perceptions of Their Museum Environments: A Contextual Perspective,” Children’s Environments 11, no. 4 (1994): 300-24.
3. Luke, J., and L. Dierking, Families Exploring Science Together Preliminary Evaluation Findings, Year One, The New Jersey State Aquarium, The Academy of Natural Sciences, The Franklin Science Museum & The Philadelphia Zoo, Philadelphia, PA, technical report (Annapolis, Md.: Institute for Learning Innovation, 2000).
4. Adelman, L., L. D. Dierking, and M. Adams, Summative Evaluation Year 3: Findings for Girls at the Center, The Franklin Science Museum & Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., technical report (Annapolis, Md.: Institute for Learning Innovation, 1999). Phase II: Summative Evaluation Final Report, Years 3 & 4, Girls at the Center, The Franklin Science Museum & Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., technical report (Annapolis, Md.: Institute for Learning Innovation, 2000).
5. Luke, J., and L. Dierking, Interim Year One Report: Tripod Formative Evaluation, Miami Museum of Science and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Greater Miami, Miami, FL, technical report (Annapolis, Md.: Institute for Learning Innovation, 1999). Tripod Preliminary Summative Evaluation Findings, Year Two, Miami Museum of Science and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Miami, Miami, FL, technical report (Annapolis, Md.: Institute for Learning Innovation, 2000).
6. Adelman, Dierking, and Adams.
7. Luke and Dierking, Tripod.
8. Dierking, L. D., “Parent-child Interactions in a Free Choice Learning Setting: An Examination of Attention-Directing Behaviors” (unpublished Ph.D. diss., University of Florida, 1987).
9. Adelman, Dierking, and Adams; Luke and Dierking, Girls at the Center, 2000.
10. Artz, K., A. Bartow-Melia, B. Glassman, and K. McCray, Intergenerational Experiences and the OurStory Program: History through Children’s Literature Program, evaluative survey report (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American History, 1999). Also: Luke and Dierking, Tripod, 1999, 2000; Adelman, Dierking, and Adams, Girls at the Center, 1999, 2000.
11. Calvin, W. H., How Brains Think (New York: BasicBooks, 1997). Hudson, J., and K. Nelson, “Effects of Script Structure on Children’s Story Recall,” Developmental Psychology 19 (1983): 525-635.
12. Nelson, K., and A. L. Brown, “The Semantic-episodic Distinction in Memory Development,” in Memory Development in Children, ed. P. A. Ornstein (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1978), pp. 233-41.
13. Bruner, J., The Culture of Education (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996).
14. Sylwester, R., In Celebration of Neurons (Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1995).
15. Borun, M., M. Chambers, and A. Cleghorn, “Families Are Learning in Science Museums,” Curator 39, no. 2 (1996): 123-38. Borun, M., and J. Dritsas, “Developing Family-friendly Exhibits,” Curator 40, no. 3 (1997): 178-96. Borun, M., J. Dritsas, J. I. Johnson, N. Peter, K. Wagner, K. Fadigan, A. Jangaard, E. Stroup, and A. Wenger, Family Learning in Museums: The PISEC Perspective (Philadelphia: The Franklin Institute, 1998).
16. Crowley, K., and M. Callanan, “Describing and Supporting Collaborative Scientific Thinking in Parent-child Interactions,” Journal of Museum Education 23, no. 1 (1998): 12-17. Crowley, K., M. Callanan, J. L. Lipson, J. Galco, K. Topping, and J. Shrager, “Shared Scientific Thinking in Everyday Parent-child Activity” (in review). Crowley, K., J. Galco, M. Jacobs, and S. R. Russo, “Explanatoids, Fossils and Family Conversations” (paper presented as part of a set, Museum Learning Collaborative: Studies of Learning from Museums, at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, 2000). Schauble, L. and M. Gleason, “What Do Adults Need to Effectively Assist Children’s Learning?” (paper presented as part of Museum Learning Collaborative).
17. Schauble and Gleason.
18. Luke, J., U. Coles, and J. H. Falk, Summative Evaluation of DNA Zone, St. Louis Science Center, St. Louis, MO, technical report (Annapolis, Md.: Institute for Learning Innovation, 1998).
19. Chadwick, J., “Public Utilization of Museum-based World Wide Web Sites” (unpublished Ph.D. diss., University of New Mexico, 1998).
20. Dierking, L. D., and D. Anderson, Summative Evaluation of World We Create, Louisville Science Center, Louisville, KY, technical report (Annapolis, Md.: Institute for Learning Innovation, 1998).
21. Dierking, L. D., Summative Evaluation of Aliens, Pacific Science Center, Seattle, WA, technical report (Annapolis, Md.: Institute for Learning Innovation, 1999).
22. Adelman, Dierking, and Adams.
23. Ibid.
24. Artz, Bartow-Melia, Glassman, and McCray.
25. Buchner, K., L. D. Dierking, and B. Soren, The Story in History Summative Evaluation, National Museum of American History, Washington, DC, technical report (Annapolis, Md.: Institute for Learning Innovation, 1999).
Lynn D. Dierking is associate director and Jessica J. Luke and Leslie Adelman are senior associates, Institute for Learning Innovation, Annapolis, Md. Kathryn A. Foat is curator of education, Baltimore Zoo.
