Practical Evaluation Guide: Tool for Museums and Other Informal Educational SettingsAdministrators of museums and other informal-learning centers often need to demonstrate, in some tangible way, the effectiveness of their institutions as teaching tools. Practical Evaluation Guide discusses specific methods for analyzing audience learning and behavior in museums, zoos, botanic gardens, nature centers, camps, and youth programs. This new edition incorporates the many advances in the burgeoning field of informal learning that have been made over the past decade. Practical Evaluation Guide serves as a basic, easy-to-follow guide for museum professionals and students who want to understand the effects of such public institutions on the people who visit them. |
Contents
EVALUATING INFORMAL LEARNING | 1 |
Thinking through an Evaluation Study | 3 |
Informal Learning | 11 |
Measuring Learning | 19 |
Protecting Study Participants | 39 |
EVALUATION TOOLS | 45 |
Selecting Study Participants | 47 |
Observational Tools | 55 |
Interviews and Questionnaires | 69 |
Presenting and Analyzing Data | 93 |
EVALUATION AS PRACTICE | 109 |
Reporting Evaluation Results | 111 |
Translating Evaluation Findings into Practice | 119 |
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Common terms and phrases
activities adult Amy Spiegel analysis answer asked assessing audience basic observations behavior Center child choose codes cognitive cognitive map concepts conceptual change conducted context Curator data set detailed developed dinosaur evaluation findings evaluation reports evaluation study example experience Exploratorium Feher formative evaluation Frank Oppenheimer front-end gallery global warming graph graphic guidelines impacts implicit implicit learning implicit memory important individual informal educational informal environments informal learning informed consent Institute for Learning Institutional Review Board interact interest interpretation interview involve Judy Diamond knowledge label Learning Innovation measure methods Museum Journal museum program museum visit National Science Foundation participant observation participant's particular presented quantitative questionnaire questions record require responses sampling Science Education science museums select participants sometimes stakeholders statistical summative evaluation systematic sampling Table tests tion typical understanding variable visitors workshop