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Many museum professionals believe that immersive exhibits—those that surround visitors—provide more attractive, engaging and effective learning experiences than tabletop exhibits. We investigated this claim by comparing visitors’ experiences of the two exhibit types, using pairs of exhibits that differed in scale (immersive vs. tabletop), but shared the same content and similar visitor activity. We randomly selected, videotaped, interviewed, and sent follow‐up surveys to sixty families who experienced immersive exhibits and sixty families who experienced tabletop exhibits. We found that each design type had strengths. Learners at immersive exhibits more often returned to the exhibits mentioned the exhibits’ positive aspects, and saw themselves as part of the exhibits. Conversely, learners spent longer periods of time at tabletop exhibits, and engaged in more content‐related reasoning. Study results partially support the view that immersive exhibits may be more fun and engaging than tabletops. However, results also counter the expectations that being immersed in exhibit experiences will lead to greater physical and intellectual engagement.

This paper describes the development of a Female‐Responsive Design Framework for Informal Science Education (ISE). The FRD Framework translates ideas from Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to discover and recommend pedagogical strategies that apply to females and design. This paper describes our synthesis of prior research about females’ social, historical, and cultural practices in STEM learning from a variety of fields. The paper further details our process of developing the FRD Framework with the help of museum practitioners, female youth, researchers, and experts from the fields of design, gender, and museums. We discuss four female‐responsive strategies, and suggest multiple STEM exhibit design attributes that support each of these strategies. This framework contributes to a growing movement to more thoughtfully consider females when designing STEM exhibits. We hope that the museum field will expand, evolve, and deeply explore the FRD Framework.

This paper describes an NSF‐funded study which explored the relationship between female‐responsive exhibit designs and girls' engagement. Across three participating science centers, 906 museum visitors ages 8–13 were observed at 334 interactive physics, math, engineering, and perception exhibits. We measured girls' engagement based on whether they chose to use or return to the exhibits, opted to spend more time at them, or demonstrated deeper engagement behavior. Findings suggest that the design strategies identified in our previously developed Female‐Responsive Design Framework can inform exhibit designs that better engage girls. However, the specific design attributes that address the broader strategies are not all equal: we identified a subset of nine exhibit design attributes that were consistently strongly related to girls' engagement. Further, none of those nine design attributes were harmful to boys' engagement. In practice, we hope educators will help address gender disparities in museums by considering female‐responsive design when creating STEM exhibits: broadening their design approaches and choosing among the nine EDGE Design Attributes based on their appropriateness for a particular exhibit experience or set of exhibits.

This paper describes a follow‐up focus group study for the larger Exhibit Designs for Girls’ Engagement (EDGE) project. Grounded in Culturally Responsive Pedagogical theory (CRP), the project aimed to understand the relationship between female responsive designs and girls’ engagement at STEM exhibits. After developing a Female‐Responsive Design (FRD) Framework and conducting a large‐scale study to determine the most important design attributes for engaging girls at exhibits, the final step involved a qualitative investigation into those design attributes. Four focus groups with 22 girls aged 8–13 explored their exhibit experiences and discourse. Participants were videotaped while using four exhibits, half of which incorporated the EDGE Design Attributes. Focus group results replicate the previous quantitative study: participants had a largely positive response to the EDGE Design Attributes and evinced greater engagement when the attributes were present at exhibits. As expected, girls’ responsiveness to the design attributes varied— aligning with the CRP approach and highlighting the important fact that not all attributes will work for all girls. To share girls’ voices more broadly with practitioners we provide direct quotes for each design attribute. Finally, of the kinds of learning expressed, girls more often practiced scientific skills by repeating or varying activities at the EDGE exhibits. The results of this study, and the larger project, provide evidence that CRP works well when designing for females and serves as a valuable theory for creating museums that are truly inclusive.