PAYING ATTENTION
This is a compilation of time spent by 8,507 visitors in 110 museum exhibitions in 62 museums. The preliminary assumption that guided this study is that there is a positive correlation between visitor time spent and learning.
Big idea: For 80% of the exhibitions, the average total visit time was less than 20 minutes regardless of the size or topic; visitors typically stopped at about 1/3 of the exhibit elements; the amount of time visitors spent was directly related to the number of elements at which they stopped.
Strength: This is a thorough and accessible study that can be used by museums to compare with in-house exhibit surveys and to craft new research studies. The author provides a good discussion of the methods, results, and counter-arguments.
Weakness: The data items studied were exhibition size, number of elements, total amount of time spent by each visitor, and the total number of stops each visitor made. Content was completely ignored. Does the study measure exhibits or audiences?
Key concepts: A "sweep rate index" of 300 square feet per minute is typical of "museum visitor speed".
Contents: Introduction; Purposes of this study; Time and learning; Methods; Findings; Discussion of methods and findings; Selected case studies; Conclusions and implications for museum practitioners; Possible next steps; Other points of view; Appendices including methods workbook, data sheets and floor plans, raw data summary, histograms and scatter-grams.
- David P ( )