Developing an Instrument to Capture Multifaceted Visitor Experiences: The DoVE Adjective Checklist

Abstract

Understanding visitor experiences is an important focus for visitor research in attractions such as museums, zoos, and heritage sites because the visitor experience is the core product of the interaction between the visitor and the activities, events, and environments they encounter. This article describes the development of an instrument designed to capture multiple facets of the visitor experience using a simple and unobtrusive adjective checklist. The checklist has been tested and used at a range of attractions, including museums, art galleries, science centers, zoos, and aquariums. The instrument allows visitors’ responses to the experiential offerings of each site to be captured and graphically displayed, as well as providing individual measures on 15 dimensions. The instrument can be used to support further research and theory development as well as exhibit design and evaluation. Examples of such applications are discussed.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the museums, science centers, zoos, and aquariums that have contributed to the development of this instrument over many years, and the colleagues who have provided feedback and encouragement along the way. Particular thanks go to Lindsay Maldonado from Shedd Aquarium and Nick Visscher from Denver Zoo. Thanks also to research assistants Katie Packer who collected all the prototype data in London, and Antje Martins who contributed to the development of the chart in Figure 1. Finally, we are grateful to the many visitors who have so willingly and generously volunteered their time to provide us a glimpse of the multifaceted visitor experience.

About the authors

Jan Packer is a Principal Research Fellow in the University of Queensland Business School. Her research focuses on applying principles from educational and positive psychology to understand and facilitate visitor experiences at museums, zoos and aquariums, botanic gardens, national parks, ecotourism, and wildlife tourism attractions. Address correspondence to: Jan Packer, UQ Business School, University of Queensland 4072, Australia. E-mail: [email protected].

Roy Ballantyne is a Research Professor in the University of Queensland Business School. He has a well-established international reputation for his research in environmental interpretation and visitor learning. His work has advanced the field of informal environmental learning in cultural, heritage, and environmental settings particularly in relation to visitor adoption of environmentally sustainable behavior.

Nigel Bond is Learning and Engagement Manager, Gallery Renewal, at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. His research interests include Indigenous and religious tourism, dark tourism experience and visitor learning. He is currently leading a team of Learning Specialists developing formal and informal learning experiences for new environmental science and social history galleries at the Museum.