What Makes a Meaningful Science Museum Experience? (Poster 13)

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Thursday 3:35 p.m.
  In Poster Session: Informal Learning Environments Research Poster Session

Abstract

An ongoing challenge for museums is understanding how visitors with diverse backgrounds and perspectives choose a museum to have an experience that is remembered and shared, and how to create experiences visitors find meaningful. Therefore, the Measure for Meaning in the Visitor Experience (MMVE) is created to explore what makes a museum experience meaningful and how meaningfulness relates to overall satisfaction and a sense of belonging. 2,630 museum visitors across six museums were surveyed. Results indicate gender, visiting with children, visit frequency, and type of museum visited can influence a meaningful museum experience. Lastly, ratings for having a meaningful experience, sense of belonging, and overall experience are moderately related, suggesting these are distinct concepts for visitors.

Authors

• Courtney Donovan, University of Colorado - Denver

• Ellen Roth, Denver Museum of Nature & Science

• Shani O'Brien, Colorado Department of Education

• Bich-Ngoc Thi Phan, Cherry Creek Schools

• Stephanie Rayburn, Denver Museum of Nature & Science

• Eleanor Hill, Denver Museum of Nature & Science