Development of a Research Instrument for Evaluating the Visitor Outcomes of Face-to-Face Interpretation

ABSTRACT

This article details the development, testing, and refinement of a set of indicators and a data collection instrument designed to be used to evaluate the outcomes of face-to-face interpretation across a range of heritage-based visitor settings and experiences. One of a suite of data collection instruments, the self-completing visitor questionnaire incorporates a set of indicators that (a) reflects the types of visitor outcomes that managers actually want from their interpretive programs; (b) is theoretically valid based on what is known about the potential cognitive, affective, and behavioural outcomes of interpretation, and (c) requires minimal effort, expense, and little or no social research expertise to collect and analyse the data, yet produces results with acceptable validity and reliability. While management and industry-driven, the research is underpinned by some thirty years of evaluation theory and practice, and is thus grounded in theories of psychology and human behaviour and methods from the social sciences and from applied program evaluation. This makes the final set of indicators an important contribution to the literature, and the questionnaire itself a useful and practical tool for those whose expertise and responsibilities lie primarily with managing and delivering rather than researching and evaluating the outcomes of interpretation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre (STCRC), established and supported under the Australian Government's Cooperative Research Centres Program, funded this research. We also wish to express our sincere thank you to all the participating partner organizations for their contribution and, in particular, the ongoing support of the management and staff of the Sovereign Hill Museums Association and Port Arthur Historic Site. A more complete list of individuals and organizations who contributed to this project is included in Ham and Weiler (2006). Finally, thank you to the anonymous reviewers for some really helpful feedback and to Dr Brent Moyle for his considerable assistance with the revisions to this manuscript.

Notes

1. Examples of other settings include national parks, zoos, aquariums, and other tourist destinations. Research tools include various types of interviews, questionnaires, participant observation, photography, concept mapping and other methods.

2. This group of representatives were from three different Australian states and included a cross-section of government, non-profit, and commercial tourism organisations. They were involved in the project from beginning to end and provided valuable input and feedback at several stages of the project.