Meta-Reflection on Contextual Differences in Research-Museum Partnerships: Lessons Learned From Two Science Museums

• In Event: Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships for Developing and Assessing Informal STEM Learning Experiences

Abstract

Objective and Perspective: Science museums offer opportunities for families to experience objects and phenomena in an informal, interest-driven environment (Callanan et al., 2015; Falk, 2004). Consequently, science museums offer opportunities for researchers to study families’ meaning-making about science, reciprocally helping museums to design exhibits and programming (Allen, 2004; Lemelin & Bencze, 2010). This situation indicates mutual benefit among participants in a research-museum partnership; however, not all partnerships reach this mutuality (Kisiel, 2012). Here, I describe contextual factors that shaped two research-museum partnerships and their outcomes.

Method: This study investigated how families enacted scaffolding strategies when participating in pop-up, hands-on science activities facilitated by myself. I partnered with a natural history museum (NHM) and a science center (SC) in the Midwest for data collection, having conducted pilot studies with both. I analyzed 23 families’ interactions for scaffolding and learning using sociocultural discourse analysis (Mercer, 2004) and two-proportion z-tests. Both parents and children provided scaffolding for family members, albeit in different ways. Notably, the total amount of scaffolding and learning differed across museums, prompting me to examine context-based explanations.

Data and Results: First, I checked for differences in my own and parents’ scaffolding across museums. I provided the same amount of scaffolding across museums, as did parents. However, children provided significantly more scaffolding at the SC than the NHM (54.9% vs. 18.2%, p < .001). Yet, I found significantly more learning at the NHM both for children who provided scaffolding (55.3% vs. 27.1%, p < .001) and children who did not (66.7% vs. 53.2%, p < .01). To explain this, I considered the museums’ mission statements and exhibit styles. The SC generates excitement in STEM topics by featuring hands-on exhibits and labs. In contrast, the NHM promotes curiosity about natural and cultural diversity by featuring immersive dioramas. In other words, the NHM involves “seeing” science while the SC involves “doing” science. The different exhibit styles may have primed children to participate in different ways, with the SC promoting helping talk/behaviors and the NHM promoting observing talk/behaviors (Allen, 2004; Falk, 2004).

I also noticed differences in how museum partners welcomed research opportunities. While both museums were willing to host research, SC partners expressed excitement about visitor-researcher interactions; promoted research activities in their newsletter; and offered multiple spaces for data collection as well as support from a staff member. In contrast, the NHM indicated concern about video-recording liabilities, and allocation of space and staff were minimal. In response, I angled cameras downward at the NHM, which made analysis of families’ interactions (e.g., facial expressions, gestures) more challenging (Derry et al., 2010).
Significance: Overall, my partnership with the SC reflected greater mutual benefit than with the NHM (Kisiel, 2012), which impacted study design, data collection, and analysis. My recommendations for other informal learning researchers would be to: establish clear benefit to all participants; address concerns that compromise study design or data quality; consider how context mediates findings; and express gratitude for partners’ willingness to provide resources.

Author

• Catherine Louise Dornfeld Tissenbaum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign