The social value of museums

1
The social value of museums

• Museum Educators of Southern California
• Annual Institute Summer 2009
• Dr. Carol Scott
• Consultant
• carolannscott_at_fastmail.co.uk

2
Overview

• Values drivers
• Public value of museums
• Indicators for public value
• Measuring museum learning
• Conclusion

3
Value drivers

• Part 1

4
The values environment

• Paradigm shift
• Public value
• Accountability
• Challenge
• measuring and articulating the value and impact
  of the sector is more than an academic exercise
  given the policy, financial and business
  structures in which most cultural organizations
  operate, rightly selecting, rigorously measuring
  and powerfully articulating the value and impact
  of the sector is one of the key pre-requisites
  for its sustainability (Stanziola 2008, 317)

5
The Future is public value

• Maintaining an organisations legitimacy in the
  eyes of the public
• Understanding citizens preferences
• If organisations are to create public value in
  their practices and use evaluative standards to
  measure their performance, then those values and
  evaluative standards must be authorised by the
  public (Blaug, Horner and Lekhi 2006, 7).

6
The Future is public accountability

• Governments and communities seek evidence that
  their investment in arts and cultural heritage
  is resulting in the creation of value to the
  community (or public value). Measurement
  assesses how much public value, and of what
  kind, has been created (ABS 2008, 10).

7
The Future is a more holistic model

• A more holistic framework on which to base the
  assessment of museums
• Qualitative as well as quantitative evidence
• A shared framework/suite of shared indicators

8
Our toolkit for the future

• Understanding what the public values about
  museums
• Values indicators to guide evidence collection
• Diverse methodological suite
• Evidence

9
Researching Public Value

• Part 2

10
Research with a public cohort
11
Questions

• Meaning
• Contribution
• Loss

12
Four dimensions of value

• Instrumental value
• Going beyond core functions and having
  aspirations to a wider agenda of social change
• Intrinsic value
• Inherent qualities of things, often intangible,
  described in affective language, without a
  utilitarian dimension

• Institutional value
• Processes and practices which agencies adopt
  that build trust in governments and the public
  service which government public funded agencies
  provide.
• Use value
• Direct use
• Indirect use
• Non-use value of museums

13
Public value of museums
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Non-use value

• Existence value I do like to know that the
  museum is there and would be upset if it ceased
  to exist (Public cohort female, non-visitor,
  55-70, urban resident)
• Option value Being 21 my social life is very
  full and museums do not come into the picture.
  When I was younger I visited museums through
  school excursions and my parents and enjoyed
  them, and when I get a family will revisit and
  probably appreciate them more (Public cohort
  male, non-visitor, 18-24, urban resident)
• Bequest value I don't think I would lose much
  sleep if museums ceased to exist However, it
  would be sad for future generations not to have
  the opportunity to see our history other than in
  photos, books etc.(Public cohort male,
  non-visitor, parent, urban resident)

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public value indicators

• Part 3

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Use and Institutional Indicators

• Use
• 1) Direct use
• 1a) Number of visitor attendances to museums
  annually
• 2) Non use
• 2a) Willingness to pay irrespective of direct
  engagement

• Institutional
• 1) Public access to collections
• 1a) Number of visitor attendances to
  museums/open storage facilities annually
• 1b) Number of unique visits on museum websites
  on pages related to collections
• 1c) Number of collection related public
  enquires
• 1d) Willingness to pay

17
Instrumental Indicators

• 1) Community capacity
• 1a) Community learning resource
• - Number of people attending public events ,
  lectures and programs
• -Number and type of educational partnerships
• - Number of downloads of educational materials
  and online questions about collections
• 1b) Educational resource for schools
• -Number of students and school groups attending
  annually

• 1c) Leisure
• -Number of people who choose museums
• compared with other leisure options
• 1d) Cultural capital
• -Number of creative and cultural
• organisations linked to the museum
• 1e) Civic pride
• -Number of times museum is cited in
• tourism promotions
• -Number of times museum is cited in
• news reportage, arts commentary

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Instrumental Indicators

• 2) Social capital
• 2a) Engagement
• - Number of volunteers/ friends/ Board members
• - Number of unpaid hours contributed annually
• 2b) Interaction
• - Proportion of attendances by families and
  friendship groups
• - Ethnicity/ age composition of visitors/
  members and friends groups

• 2c) Economy
• 2ci) Tourism
• -Proportion of attendances from inbound
• and domestic tourists
• 2cii) Employment
• -Number of EFT people employed
• 2ciii) Value adding
• -Value of purchases from local companies
• -Multiplier effect on local businesses
• 2civ) Inspiration
• -Number of designers that request access
• to collections
• -Number of new products inspired by
• collections

19
Assessing the value of museum Learning

• Part 4

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Learning in museums

• Type of experience
• Visual learning through objects
• Engaging the senses
• Fun and entertaining
• Free choice
• Access for all ages

• Individual outcomes
• Cognitive
• Discovery/ Enrichment/ Excitement/ Inspiration/
  Reflection
• Well being
• Joy/ Pleasure
• Empathetic
• Perspective/ Awareness/ Insight

21
Experimental evaluation

• Case study 1 Unique Learning experience offered
  by museums

22
Design learning

• Can students learn about design in settings other
  than the academic studio?
• Can students learn about design from museums?
• If so, what could they learn in museums?

23
The methodology
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Design learning in the academic setting

• From the designers point of view
• Learning was constructed for the student by what
  the designer had highlighted (Lighting/ Space/
  Materials)
• The way he designed the exhibition space.Seeing
  things in ways you wouldnt normally see. Linked
  to placement and lighting.
• The designers use of sensory displays and
  ambienceusing light and different structures to
  create a mood.
• To gain an understanding of the nature of the
  space and how to take their design elements and
  incorporate them into the exhibit space
• She used black glass in the floor of Bayagal.
  Can show you a lot about what youre trying to
  represent. Also symbolism e.g. glass in floor
  actual glass casing to represent fragile nature.

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Design learning in the museum

• Structure-Discovery, just develops as you go
  along pretty impressive how it unfolds
• Formats-Variety of interfaces and a whole lot of
  different approaches to presenting the
  information. By interface mean print, moving
  image, interactive, footage.
• Visual- Way of displaying parts of world and
  cultures that were not aware of times and eras
  we dont know about we read about things, but
  exhibitions present those things better visually
  rather than words tends to get you more
  interested if not really interested in first
  place.
• Objects-Those cleaning things from the Greeks
  strigles got me thinking it says, the curved
  shape fits the contours of the body got me
  wondering what were they scraping off- looked
  horrible. Interesting that it was scraping, they
  didnt use water at all.

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Summary

• Learning in the museum was qualitatively
  different
• Self constructed
• Critical analysis and reflection
• Many entry points
• Life long learning

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Long term impact

• Case study 2 Learning from Interactives

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Learning from interactives

• Does learning occur?
• If so, what kind of learning occurs?
• Is learning sustained over time?

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The study

• Control Museum with a collection and a science
  centre
• Sample 200 people/ ages 16-65 study over two
  months (holiday and non-holiday periods)
• Method
• Baseline visitor interviews- visitor demographics
  and psychographics
• Personal Meaning Mapping interviews-visitors
  prior perceptions of the institution/extent to
  which interactivity was a specific expectation or
  outcome of the experience
• In-depth face-to-face post-interviews-
  immediately after the interactive exhibit
  experience and
• Telephone interviews- conducted with a subset of
  visitors 4-8 months after their experience with
  the interactives.

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Interactives

•  

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Findings

• Learning does occur from engagement with
  interactives
• Learning from interactives is affected as much by
  expectations as it is by prior knowledge and the
  actual experience
• The study found that engagement with interactives
  resulted in 4 different categories of learning
• Learning is a continuous and on-going process
  which develops and changes over time

32
Learning over time
85 of those interviewed at the Science Centre
came with children under 12. At the Museum,
families were only 17 of total and the children
were generally older
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Long term learning

• Immediate outcome
• I found out it would take 5 Earths to sustain the
  worlds population if everyone was like me
  (interactive on personal ecologic footprint)
• Fun and amazing (interactive on the impact of
  driving a car when tired)

• 4-8 Months Later
• I am more conscious of recycling and have started
  separating my rubbish. I recognize that I am a
  water abuser, even simple things like keeping the
  tap water running while brushing your teeth
  wastes water.
• I realized that immature drivers did quite poorly
  on Driving Tired. Ive since played computer
  games involving driving with my sonwe played
  these games at home.

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Science Centre

• Museum
• Expect knowledge, learning, information
• Expect the past, history, heritage , old stuff,
  collections, unique objects, treasures
• Less expectation of interactivity
• Greater degree of change
• Modern, explored current issues, looked forward
• Adjusted perceptions of the type of experiences
  one could have in a museum to be active, fun
  learning instead of passive learning, where you
  were able to create something yourself thats
  challenging and which is about more than
  history.

• Expect interactivity
• Expect learning in a fun environment
• Applied learning
• Family experience
• Focused
• Match between expectations and experience

35
Some reflections

• Accountability continues
• Assessment paradigm will increasingly be informed
  by public value
• Challenges- opportunity costs
• The learning value of museums
• -its uniqueness
• -the higher levels of cognition that it fosters
• -its long term impact
• Has much to offer in positively positioning our
  sector

36
Thank you

• Dr. Carol Scott
• Consultant
• carolannscott_at_fastmail.co.uk

37
References

• Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2008a.
  cat. 4915.0.55.002. Arts and Cultural Heritage-an
  Information Development Plan. Canberra
  Australian Bureau of Statistics.
• Blaug R., Horner L., Lekhi R. 2006, Public value,
  politics and public management A literature
  review, The Work Foundation, London.
• Caban, G Scott, C Falk, J Dierking, L 2002,
  Museums and creativity a study into the role of
  museums in design education, Powerhouse
  Publishing, Sydney.
• Falk, J Scott, C, Dierking L, Rennie L
  Cohen-Jones, M 2004, Interactives and visitor
  learning, Curator - The Museum Journal, vol.
  47, no. 2, April, pp. 171-192.
• Kelly, G Mulgan, G Muers, S 2002, Creating
  public value an analytical framework for public
  service reform, Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office,
  London.
• Moore, MH 1995, Creating public value strategic
  management in government, Harvard University
  Press, Cambridge, MA.
• Scott, C.A. (2008) Using Values to Position and
  Promote Museums in the International Journal of
  Arts Management, Vol. 11, No. 1, Fall, pp. 28-41.