scholarly journals Measurement of Science Museum Visitors’ Emotional Experiences at Exhibits Designed to Encourage Productive Struggle

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah May ◽  
Katie Todd ◽  
Samantha G. Daley ◽  
Gabrielle Rappolt‐Schlichtmann
Keyword(s):  
Science Museum ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
Museum Visitors ◽  
Productive Struggle

Everything you've always wanted to know about what your students think they know but were afraid to ask.

2000 ◽  
Vol 632 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Werwa
Keyword(s):  
Materials Science ◽  
Science Museum ◽  
Science And Engineering ◽  
Museum Exhibit ◽  
Museum Visitors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Materials Science And Engineering ◽  
Properties Of Materials ◽  
Formal Science ◽  
Lay Public

ABSTRACTA review of the educational literature on naive concepts about principles of chemistry and physics and surveys of science museum visitors reveal that people of all ages have robust alternative notions about the nature of atoms, matter, and bonding that persist despite formal science education experiences. Some confusion arises from the profound differences in the way that scientists and the lay public use terms such as materials, metals, liquids, models, function, matter, and bonding. Many models that eloquently articulate arrangements of atoms and molecules to informed scientists are not widely understood by lay people and may promote naive notions among the public. Shifts from one type of atomic model to another and changes in size scales are particularly confusing to learners. People's abilities to describe and understand the properties of materials are largely based on tangible experiences, and much of what students learn in school does not help them interpret their encounters with materials and phenomena in everyday life. Identification of these challenges will help educators better convey the principles of materials science and engineering to students, and will be particularly beneficial in the design of the Materials MicroWorld traveling museum exhibit.

scholarly journals Mandates of maternity at a science museum, from should to must

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Haldane Lee
Keyword(s):  
Health Communication ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Medical Advice ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Science Museum ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Science Center ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Museum Visitors ◽  
Fetal Rights

A pregnancy exhibit at a science museum is an opportunity to research how medical advice is communicated and interpreted. This paper is about the Beginning of Life area of an exhibition called The Amazing You at the Tampa Museum of Science and Industry, where exhibits are prescriptive as well as descriptive. Expectant women are urged to deliver full-term, normal birthweight babies, by behaving according to prescribed medical norms. This study provides ethnographic descriptions of the exhibits, as well as insights from museum visitors who were interviewed. The exhibits, which emphasize fetal rights and maternal duties, are interpreted and critiqued by women visitors. As the exhibits climb towards greater realism (from euphemistic computer graphics to actual fetal specimens) visitors encounter assertions of fact that precede sometimes tacit directives to undergo a medicalized pregnancy. Exhibits are viewed from the perspective of speech act theory, presenting a new approach to health communication research. I argue that this science center exhibit tells people what to do, in addition to passing on information.

Investigating aspects of data visualization literacy using 20 information visualizations and 273 science museum visitors

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katy Börner ◽  
Adam Maltese ◽  
Russell Nelson Balliet ◽  
Joe Heimlich
Keyword(s):  
Data Visualization ◽  
Informal Education ◽  
Science Museum ◽  
Science Museums ◽  
Museum Visitors ◽  
Hard Time ◽  
Phase Study ◽  
The Media ◽  
Multi Phase ◽  
Information Visualizations

In the information age, a person’s ability to read and make data visualizations is nearly as important as being able to read and write text. This article reports the results of a multi-phase study conducted in informal learning environments in three US science museums. The goal of the study was to determine the familiarity of youth and adult museum visitors with different visualization types. To address this, a total of 273 visitors were shown 5 out of 20 different visualizations that included two charts, five maps, eight graphs, and five network layouts. They were asked to judge the familiarity of the visualization, provide information on how to read it, and provide a name and identify typical locations where they would encounter the data display and possible data sources that might be visualized in this way. The results show that while most participants have a strong interest in science, math, and art, many have a hard time naming and interpreting visualizations. Participants in this study commonly encounter visualizations in school, in books, at work, on the Internet, and in the news. Overall, they were more familiar with basic charts, maps, and graphs, but very few are familiar with network layouts and most have no ability in reading network visualizations. When asked how they would interpret the visualizations, most participants pointed to superficial features such as color, lines, or text as important to developing understanding. Overall, we found that participants were interested in the visualizations we presented to them, but had significant limitations in identifying and understanding them. The results substantiate intuitions shared by many regarding the rather low level of data visualization literacy of general audiences. We hope they will help catalyze novel research on the development of easy-to-use yet effective visualizations with standardized names and guaranteed properties that can be readily used by those interested to understand and solve real-world problems. The results also have implications for how information visualizations are taught and used in formal and informal education, the media, or in different professions.

scholarly journals Comic Strips to Accompany Science Museum Exhibits

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beom Sun Chung ◽  
Eun-mi Park ◽  
Sang-Hee Kim ◽  
Sook-kyoung Cho ◽  
Min Suk Chung
Keyword(s):  
Science Museum ◽  
Science Museums ◽  
Comic Strips ◽  
Museum Exhibits ◽  
Museum Visitors ◽  
Science Exhibitions ◽  
The Individual

<p>Science museums make the effort to create exhibits with amusing explanations. However, existing explanation signs with lengthy text are not appealing, and as such, visitors do not pay attention to them. In contrast, conspicuous comic strips composed of simple drawings and humors can attract science museum visitors. This study attempted to reveal whether comic strips contribute to science exhibitions. More than 20 comic strips were chosen that were associated with exhibits in a science museum. The individual episodes were printed out and placed beside the corresponding exhibits. A questionnaire was administered to museum visitors to evaluate the effects of the comic strips. Most visitors responded that the comic strips were helpful in understanding the exhibits and in familiarizing themselves with the science. Participants also described the comic strips’ deficiencies which will be considered for future revisions. Comic strips are likely to enhance interest in and comprehension of science exhibitions. Furthermore, these strips are expected to enrich science museums in various ways such as establishing their uniqueness.</p>

scholarly journals Dinosaurs, Racial Anxiety, and Curatorial Intervention: Whiteness and Performative Historiography in the Museum

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
Scott Magelssen
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
American West ◽  
Science Museum ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
American Museum ◽  
Museum Visitors ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Historical Objects ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Survival Of The Fittest

This essay argues that the staged encounters between museum visitors and dioramic display of dinosaur fossils in natural history and science museum spaces have been designed to capitalize on and performatively reify white anxiety about the exotic other using the same practices reserved for representing other historic threats to white safety and purity, such as primitive “savages” indigenous to the American West, sub-Saharan Africa, the Amazon, and other untamed wildernesses through survival-of-the-fittest tropes persisting over the last century. Dinosaur others in popular culture have served as surrogates for white fears and anxieties about the racial other. The author examines early dioramic displays of dinosaurs at New York’s American Museum of Natural History and conjectural paintings by artists like Charles R. Knight to argue that the historiographic manipulation of time, space, and matter, enabled and legitimized by a centering of the white subject as protagonist, has defined how we understand dinosaurs and has structured our relationship with them as (pre)historical objects. Exposing the ways in which racist tropes like white precarity have informed historiographical practices in dinosaur exhibits offers a tool for interrogating how racist ideologies have permeated the formations of modernity that inform our modes of inquiry.

Attitude change when presenting science museum visitors with risk-benefit information

2017 ◽  
Vol 101 (6) ◽  
pp. 873-886
Author(s):  
Siëlle Phelan ◽  
Inga Specht ◽  
Wolfgang Schnotz ◽  
Doris Lewalter
Keyword(s):  
Attitude Change ◽  
Science Museum ◽  
Museum Visitors

Intraindividual Variability and Stability of Affect and Well-Being

GeroPsych ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 185-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Röcke ◽  
Annette Brose
Keyword(s):  
Age Differences ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Regulatory Processes ◽  
Functional Implications ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Underlying Processes

Whereas subjective well-being remains relatively stable across adulthood, emotional experiences show remarkable short-term variability, with younger and older adults differing in both amount and correlates. Repeatedly assessed affect data captures both the dynamics and stability as well as stabilization that may indicate emotion-regulatory processes. The article reviews (1) research approaches to intraindividual affect variability, (2) functional implications of affect variability, and (3) age differences in affect variability. Based on this review, we discuss how the broader literature on emotional aging can be better integrated with theories and concepts of intraindividual affect variability by using appropriate methodological approaches. Finally, we show how a better understanding of affect variability and its underlying processes could contribute to the long-term stabilization of well-being in old age.

Emotional Experiences of Students in the Classroom

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wondimu Ahmed ◽  
Greetje van der Werf ◽  
Alexander Minnaert
Keyword(s):  
Heart Rate ◽  
Emotional Response ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Physiological Reactivity ◽  
Emotional Experiences ◽  
Heart Rate Monitoring ◽  
Coding Scheme ◽  
Stimulated Recall ◽  
Response Systems ◽  
The Relationship

In this article, we report on a multimethod qualitative study designed to explore the emotional experiences of students in the classroom setting. The purpose of the study was threefold: (1) to explore the correspondence among nonverbal expressions, subjective feelings, and physiological reactivity (heart rate changes) of students’ emotions in the classroom; (2) to examine the relationship between students’ emotions and their competence and value appraisals; and (3) to determine whether task difficulty matters in emotional experiences. We used multiple methods (nonverbal coding scheme, video stimulated recall interview, and heart rate monitoring) to acquire data on emotional experiences of six grade 7 students. Concurrent correspondence analyses of the emotional indices revealed that coherence between emotional response systems, although apparent, is not conclusive. The relationship between appraisals and emotions was evident, but the effect of task difficulty appears to be minimal.

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