Kids Have the Darnedest Observations 2.0

Thursday, October 29, 2015 3:36 PM by Taylor Studios in Other


Most years, Taylor Studios, Inc. presents a session at the NAI National Workshop. We develop our sessions with a focus on what the attendees may value. We ask the question, “What useful, insightful, and provocative information can we offer to attendees?”

Despite the fact that we believe our sessions all rise to the order of useful, insightful, and provocative, we are surprised at the arbitrary numbers of attendees across our sessions. Some sessions seem to provide perfect content at the perfect time, and others not so much. Perhaps our topic is not as intriguing as we imagine it is, perhaps it is our time slot or competing concurrent sessions competition.

Last November, we were delightfully overwhelmed by the positive feedback we received from our session Kids Have the Darnedest Observations. In short, the session focused on the fact that there is a general absence in the literature about the opinions of young kids (in their own words) about their experiences in museums, nature centers, zoos, aquaria, and planetariums. Therefore, we decided to conduct a visitor study where we documented 3rd and 4th graders articulating their visitor experiences in informal education settings. This museum study would help inform our exhibit designers in the future.

The results of the study surprised us greatly. It backed up the claim of a prior visitor study (which we based ours upon) that prior knowledge of an exhibited topic was more important than interactivity when it came to favorite exhibit experiences.

The presentation yielded great turnout—standing room only. Did we present a good topic at a good time or was the topic salient to the attendees? We learned that the topic was salient, for no fewer than four of the attendees asked if they could somehow get involved in the study. Therefore, we are presenting phase II of this study during this NAI 2015 national conference.

Phase II is intriguing because it features a completely different demographic (rural schoolchildren vs. large town schoolchildren). Will the data from this new demographic parallel our previous findings? Will there be large disparities in informal learning attendance or access? Only your attendance can answer these questions.

Join us in Virginia Beach, 11/10-11/14, Booth # 409

Session Details: **Kids Say the Darnedest Things: Phase 2

November 12, 2015

11:00 AM–12:30 PM**

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