This visual Data Story is based on findings from the 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, a national survey of American museum visitors from AAM and Wilkening Consulting. Every year, the survey partners with individual museums to research their audiences and yield insights about their behaviors and preferences, both on an institutional and national level. Interested in joining the 2025 edition on the themes of repeat visitation, social connection, and community trust and responsibility? Sign up by February 28, 2025, for a special early bird rate.
Skip over related stories to continue reading article“I think it’s important to my well-being to continually be learning and growing in my mind, and imagination helps that. If I don’t have imagination or growth, I think I would be bored and depressed with this life.”
Visiting a museum is an act of imagination. We use our imaginations to imagine what the past was like, how animals live, the experiences of others, and to explore different places.
We also use our imaginations to imagine things in new ways, whether through art or science.
Museum-goers emphatically agree that museums spark our imaginations: 97%!
Each individual, however, uses their imagination in different ways and attributes different outcomes to those imaginative experiences.
In the 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, as well as a broader population sample of U.S. Adults, we wanted to learn more about the role and impact of imaginative learning in museums, and asked respondents a series of questions on the topic. In this Data Story, we’ll share these overall results, and explore more deeply in follow-up infographics.
We first asked respondents: How would you like to use your imagination while learning in museums?
Our answer choices presented an expansive approach to imagination, and respondents were supportive: the average respondent selected four of the answer choices, and only 3% of frequent museum-goers admitted “I don’t really want to use my imagination when visiting museums.”
Immersion in beauty
- Museum-goers: 75%
- U.S. adults: 58%
Mental “time travel” to the PAST
- Museum-goers: 70%
- U.S. adults: 68%
Personal stories that build empathy and connection
- Museum-goers: 61%
- U.S. adults: 54%
Innovative thinking through STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math)
- Museum-goers: 47%
- U.S. adults: 55%
Mental “time travel” to the FUTURE
- Museum-goers: 45%
- U.S. adults: 52%
Problem-solving exercises
- Museum-goers: 39%
- U.S. adults: 47%
Brainstorming or idea-building activities
- Museum-goers: 38%
- U.S. adults: 47%
I don’t really want to use my imagination when visiting museums
- Museum-goers: 3%
- U.S. adults: 5%
Additionally, parents and guardians were the most enthusiastic about these answer choices, especially the more STEM-oriented answers around innovative thinking, problem-solving, and idea-building.
To follow-up, respondents were asked what outcomes of imaginative learning experiences in museums they wanted visitors to experience. They said:
Recharge us mentally, as we experience awe, wonder, or beauty
- Museum-goers: 76%
- U.S. adults: 56%
Inspire curiosity to wonder and learn on our own
- Museum-goers: 75%
- U.S. adults: 59%
Broaden our minds to imagine life experiences different than our own
- Museum-goers: 74%
- U.S. adults: 59%
Develop greater understanding of the experiences of people from the past through historical imagination
- Museum-goers: 72%
- U.S. adults: 60%
Promote critical thinking by imagining different possibilities and using evidence to understand what is most likely or the best choice
- Museum-goers: 59%
- U.S. adults: 53%
Build excitement about the new ideas and creativity the experiences spark
- Museum-goers: 59%
- U.S. adults: 52%
Help us imagine a better future, giving us something positive to work towards
- Museum-goers: 49%
- U.S. adults: 48%
None of these
- Museum-goers: 1%
- U.S. adults: 4%
Again, respondents were supportive, with the average respondent choosing nearly ve of the answer choices (and only 1% of frequent museum-goers saying “none of these”).
To help us understand how enthusiastic respondents were about imaginative learning in museums, we sorted respondents into three categories:
- RESISTANT: these respondents answered negatively to one or both of the questions.
- AMBIVALENT: these respondents like the idea of imaginative learning, but are not necessarily seeking it out. They typically chose one to four answer choices to each question.
- ENTHUSIASTIC: these respondents loved the idea of imaginative learning, and chose five or more answer choices to both questions; in fact, 85% of this segment chose ALL of the answer choices in one or both of the questions.
Resistant: Imagination
- Museum-goers: 3%
- U.S. adults: 5%
Ambivalent: Imagination
- Museum-goers: 52%
- U.S. adults: 58%
Enthusiastic: Imagination
- Museum-goers: 45%
- U.S. adults: 37%
Clearly, imagination is popular and generally welcome among our visitors. Nearly half of frequent museum-goers fall in the “enthusiastic” segment. The more ambivalent respondents are also happy to go along with imaginative learning, responding positively (just less enthusiastically). We’ll explore these three segments more in our next Data Story.
Overall, however, this suggests that we can be very proactive talking about imagination in museums. The more we talk about and support imagination, helping visitors to feel good about their own imaginative learning, the more effective we can be in their learning experiences and outcomes.
“Imagination is very important to me…it keeps me interested in the many layers of life’s complexity and quality, opportunities. It inspires me beyond ‘what is’ to ‘what could be.’ It is soul food for my right brain.”
Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Stories are created by Wilkening Consulting on behalf of the American Alliance of Museums. Sources include:
• 2024 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, n = 90,178; 202 museums participating
• 2024 Broader Population Sampling, n = 2,154
• 2017 – 2023 Annual Surveys of Museum-Goers
U.S. demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
*Data Stories share research about both frequent museum-goers (typically visit multiple museums each year) and the broader population (including casual, sporadic, and non-visitors to museums). See the Purpose and Methodology (Update) Data Story from September 5, 2024 for more information on methodology.
More Data Stories can be found at wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories.
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