Dear Colleague:

My name is Homer Wu, I recently joined this list and have sat on the
sidelines waiting to see what people were discussing about. To my surprise
I have not seen any subject regarding exhibits evaluation so far, so I
though I would try to stir things up a little.

I am a doctoral student here in the College of Forestry at Stephen F.
Austin State University and am currently working on my dissertation.  My
research is releated to an evaluation of the use and effectiveness of
interpretive exhibits on a national park.   I have done some literature
review on this topic, but so far not many are actually from "exhibit" stand
points.  I have been searching in all the regular places for information.
This has brought limited success.

Another difficulty that I am facing is how to establish the criteria for
effectiveness, and for validity and reliability reasons, what statistical
methods should I use.  I assume that YOU as professionals (experts) would
have done some kind of similar evaluations before, I would like to hear
from you and hope you would provide me with some tips.

Specifically, I am desparately looking for papers, journals, articles or
books that deal with this issue.  Can any one direct me to newsgroups, WWW
location, Gopher sites, or other databases for information about  how to
evaluate the effectiveness of the interpretive exhibits?

Please let me know if you know of any research was done in this field, I
would be very grateful.

Any leads would be highly appreciated.  Thanks in advance!


Regards,

Homer

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Homer C. Wu
Doctoral Research/Teaching Assistant
Stephen F. Austin State University
College of Forestry,  P. O. Box 6109
Nacogdoches, Texas  75962
U. S. A.
Work: (409) 468-1347
FAX:   (409) 468-2489
E-mail: [log in to unmask]

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