Empowering Families Through Research-based Museum Exhibits on Child Development: Impacts on Caregivers and Implications for Researcher–Museum Partnerships

ABSTRACT

Increased recognition of the need to study child development outside of research labs in naturalistic contexts has led to the formation of partnerships between researchers and museums. Researcher–museum partnerships provide researchers access to families and naturalistic contexts in museums to study learning and social development. Although benefits for researchers are well established, benefits for the museum and museum visitors are less clear. To investigate the potential benefits of research exhibits for museum visitors, we compared the impacts of a research toy exhibit and permanent museum exhibits on parents and caregivers attending a children’s museum. Although caregivers reported that their children had less fun at the research exhibit, caregivers learned more at the research exhibit and reported that the research exhibit raised more questions and had greater relevance to them compared with permanent exhibits. Caregivers who visited research exhibits were also more likely to be reminded of and to apply ideas from the exhibit to their daily life compared to those who visited permanent exhibits. Our findings support the unique benefits of research exhibits for caregivers and indicate a need to showcase potential learning opportunities for visitors in future researcher–museum partnerships.

KEYWORDS:

• Researcher–museum partnerships
• science outreach
• science communication
• children’s museums
• visitor experience

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the University of Colorado Boulder’s Office of Outreach and Engagement and the National Living Lab for funding, the participating families at the Children’s Museum of Denver at Marsico Campus, the museum staff, particularly Erika Weiss and Susan Lynds for consultation about the survey, and the interns who staffed the research exhibit: Monique Baca, Kathryn Flint, Willow Hagan, Micaela Hines, Kale Huber, Sydney Krieg, Taylor Mitchell, Hayden Morano, Arielle Sandoval, Shadi Sharif, Alexis Thomson, Abigail Tracer, and Kaylyn Van Deusen.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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5 Beaumont et al., National Living Laboratory.

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7 Williams and Sparks, “Collaborative Inquiry at a Children’s Museum.”

8 Frank, Vul, and Saxe, “Measuring the Development of Social Attention.”

9 Lussenhop, Cahill, and Kipling, National Living Lab Broad Implementation, Year 1; Lussenhop et al., “Social Participation of Families with Children.”

10 Lussenhop, Cahill, and Kipling, National Living Lab Broad Implementation, Year 1.

11 https://livinglab.org/.

12 Beaumont et al., National Living Laboratory; Mueller and Dweck, “Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children’s Motivation and Performance.”

13 Mueller and Dweck, “Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children’s Motivation and Performance.”

14 Burun, Chambers, and Cleghorn, “Families are Learning in Science Museums”; Borun et al., “Enhancing Family Learning through Exhibits.”

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16 Thomas and Anderson, “Parents’ Metacognitive Knowledge.”

17 Knutson and Crowley, “Museum as Learning Laboratory.”

18 Anderson et al., “Children’s Museum Experiences”; Benjamin, Haden, and Wilkerson, Enhancing Building, Conversation, and Learning; Haden, Talking about Science in Museums.

19 Haden, “Talking about Science in Museums.”

Additional information

Funding

The funding for this work was supported by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Office of Outreach and Engagement and the National Living Lab.

Notes on contributors

Laura E. Michaelson

Laura E. Michaelson is a Senior Researcher at the American Institutes for Research and co-founder of the Methods of Synthesis and Integration Center (MOSAIC). She holds a dual Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science and a certificate in Quantitative Methods from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Jesse C. Niebaum

Jesse C. Niebaum is Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis. He holds a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of California, Davis.

Sarah Brenkert

Sarah Brenkert is the Principal Evaluator at the Seattle Aquarium. She holds an M.S. in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from the Bank Street College of Education and has 15+ years of diverse experience in early learning, non-profit leadership, and program evaluation.

Grace L. Dostart

Grace L. Dostart is a Senior Project Manager at the Renée Crown Wellness Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder and holds a B.A. in Psychology from Hendrix College.

Yuko Munakata

Yuko Munakata is a Professor of Developmental Psychology in the Department of Psychology and Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University.