Learning in Children's Museums: Is It Really Happening?

Puchner, Laurel; Rapoport, Robyn; Gaskins, Suzanne

doi:10.1111/j.2151-6952.2001.tb01164.x

Cited by 44 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Another example of theoretically-framed research within children's museums included exhibits of real-life social and nature environments (e.g. Puchner et al 2001). Such research aligned well with Bandura's social cognitive theory (1986) given the focus on learning as a change in mental representations because of experience that could, or could not, be manifested in behaviour.…”

Section: Theoretical Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Benjamin et al 2010;Puchner et al 2001;Wolf and Wood 2012). For example, Wolf and Wood (2012) present the 'Kindness tree' exhibit in the Indianapolis children's museum as an excellent example of scaffolding use.…”

Section: Children's Museumsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Puchner et al 2001). Although most of the six reviewed studies focused on describing the facilitation strategies and activities, two studies explored learning gains.…”

Section: Children's Museumsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Museums as avenues of learning for children: a decade of research

Andre

Durksen

Volman

2016

Learning Environ Res

141

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In this review, we focus on the museum activities and strategies that encourage and support children's learning. In order to provide insight into what is known about children's learning in museums, we examined study content, methodology and the resultant knowledge from the last decade of research. Because interactivity is increasingly seen as essential in children's learning experiences in a museum context, we developed a framework that distinguishes between three main interactivity types for facilitating strategies and activities in children's learning: child-adults/peers; child-technology and child-environment. We identify the most promising strategies and activities for boosting children's learning as situated in overlapping areas of these interactivity types. Specifically, we identify scaffolding as a key to enhanced museum learning. Our review concludes by highlighting research challenges from the last decade and recommendations for practice and future research on how to design, evaluate and guide theoretically-grounded educational programs for children in museums.

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Section: Theoretical Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Children's Museumsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Museums as avenues of learning for children: a decade of research

Andre

Durksen

Volman

2016

Learning Environ Res

141

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…A few researchers (cf. Carlisle, 1985; Lucas & McManus, 1986;Puchner, Rapoport, & Gaskins, 2001; Weier & Piscitelli, 2002) have begun to make note of the existence of non-verbal behaviours in interactive galleries. Yet, except for a few examples (cf.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A few researchers (cf. Carlisle, 1985;Lucas & McManus, 1986;Puchner, Rapoport, & Gaskins, 2001;Weier & Piscitelli, 2002) for a few examples (cf. Diamond, 1986;Rahm, 2004), little analytic attention has been given to how people's talk is interwoven with their bodily and material conduct.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exhibiting Performance: Co‐participation in science centres and museums

Meisner

Lehn

Heath

et al. 2007

International Journal of Science Education

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NutzungsbedingungenThere is a growing commitment within science centres and museums to deploy computerbased exhibits to enhance participation and engage visitors with socio-scientific issues. As yet however, we have little understanding of the interaction and communication that arises with and around these forms of exhibits, and the extent to which they do indeed facilitate engagement. In this paper, we examine the use of novel computer-based exhibits to explore how people, both alone and with others, interact with and around the installations. The data are drawn from video-based field studies of the conduct and communication of visitors to the Energy Gallery at London's Science Museum. The paper explores how visitors transform their activity with and around computer-based exhibits into performances, and how such performances create shared experiences. It reveals how these performances can attract other people to become an audience to an individual's use of the system and subsequently sustain their engagement with both the performance and the exhibit. The observations and findings of the study are used to reflect upon the extent to which the design of exhibits enables particular forms of co-participation or shared experiences, and to develop design sensitivities that exhibition managers and designers may consider when wishing to engender novel ways of engagement and participation with and around computer-based exhibits. Hermanson, 1995;Hennes, 2002; Perry, 1989Perry, , 1993 Semper, 1990). As a result such institutions grapple with ways to support visitor engagement with science, and are thus concerned with visitor attitudes towards both science and representations of science. The authors of this paper, being a mix of academic researchers and practitioners at a science museum, respect that museum educators and exhibit developers take seriously the challenge of making subjects commonly perceived as boring or difficult engaging and have worked to develop ways to draw visitors into exhibits that aim to teach complex concepts from which most visitors would normally shy away. As such, a common task for those within the museum community, and perhaps more broadly within science education, is -how do you make the seemingly tedious engaging?Computer-based exhibits, particularly simulations and games, are often seen by museum educators and designers as a way forward -a means of engaging visitors with complex concepts in innovative ways (Farmelo & Carding, 1997 This paper seeks to contribute to the knowledgebase by looking at participation, and in particular how shared experiences arise both in and through visitors' performative activity with and around computer-based exhibits in the Energy Gallery at London's ScienceMuseum -exhibits that have been designed with, among other aims, the intention of engendering a range of activities that might be of interest to both the user(s) and the observers. Drawing upon field observations and video recordings of visitors' verbal and bodily conduct, this paper explores the social organi...

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Ethnographic Studies of Children and Youth and the Media

Tobin

Henward

2011

A Companion to the Anthropology of Education

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Learning in Children's Museums: Is It Really Happening?

Cited by 44 publications

References 23 publications

Museums as avenues of learning for children: a decade of research

Museums as avenues of learning for children: a decade of research

Exhibiting Performance: Co‐participation in science centres and museums

Ethnographic Studies of Children and Youth and the Media

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