“Good” organisational reasons for “ineffectual” research: Evaluating summative evaluation of museums and galleries

Abstract

New displays, galleries and exhibitions in museums and galleries are increasingly subject to summative evaluations, wide-ranging investigations that examine how visitors respond to and engage with particular initiatives. These evaluations provide insights into the behaviour and attitudes of visitors and the ways in which particular exhibitions, exhibits and information resources facilitate engagement, participation and learning. Unfortunately, however, summative evaluation has relatively little impact either on the particular initiative or more generally in contributing to our knowledge of visitor behaviour and understanding of best practice. In this paper, we suggest that the relative lack of impact of summative evaluation is not primarily due to any methodological shortcomings or the idiosyncrasies of some of the approaches that are used. Rather, the organisational and institutional context in which summative evaluation is commissioned, undertaken and received can impose contradictory demands and undermine the opportunity of learning from and applying the findings of evaluation.

Keywords:

• summative evaluation
• museums
• galleries
• visitors
• participation
• evidence
• impact

Acknowledgements

Our apologies for ruthlessly corrupting the title of Garfinkel's (1967) seminal chapter “Good” organisational reasons for “bad” clinical records. The project on which this article is based was funded by the Wellcome Trust and Heritage Lottery Fund. We would like to thank Ken Arnold and Fiona Talbott and their colleagues for supporting the project and their contributions to our analysis of evaluation. We would also like to thank all those who so willingly helped by providing access to reports, participating in the colloquia, and discussing their own approaches to and interests in evaluation. In addition, we thank the anonymous peer reviewers of an earlier version of this paper. This paper draws from their comments and ideas – but remains through and through the responsibility of the authors alone.