In article <[log in to unmask]>, Mike Teskey <[log in to unmask]>
says:
>
>I am helping a museum/interpretive center revise its master plan and am
>seeking feedback on the visitor/community input aspects of the process.
>I'll start with a statement and then try to shape some questions around it.
>It is amazing how uncritical visitors are about their experience.

Mike, I think you're experiencing the social inhibition people have about
being critical to a host's face. It's a pretty common effect, and one that
leads some people to question the whole utility of questionnaires (of course
that would mean their questioning of questioning as a tool would be useless
too,
so the argument is moot...<G>).
To illustrate: I once had a workshop coordinator deliver a satisfaction
survey to workshop participants, face-to-face. I then handed out the same
survey
to other participants, for them to fill in themselves. They didn't know me;
they knew
the coordinator was responsible for the workshops because she had been bustling
about helping them. The results were startlingly different, with my 'secret
ballot'
respondents being *much* more critical.
When I had an interviewer take his dog to the park and chat with other park
users
(they not knowing he was connected with any museum), their bluntness about the
short-
comings of museums was embarrassing. Got a lot of good (gulp!) stuff from that
one.

If you think that questionnaires and surveys have some built-in power to elicit
the
truth, you're cruisin' for a bruisin'. There is an immense amount of work by
psychologists
and other social scientists on the validity of questionning, and how to improve
it. Have
a look at this literature, and you'll find some good stuff.

>Also this observation: The people who have seem pleased with the experience
>are spending their day with loved ones;  therefore their experience is
>undeniably shaped/skewed by the interaction they have with one
>another--moreso, perhaps, than how they experience the site and its
>interpretation.

Yup, the social aspects are paramount. Museums are a social activity afterall.
Only museum
staff think it's a solitary search for enlightenment (Oops! Did I say that?)

>  While this may not tell us much about how we need to
>improve the museum, it does remind us that "shared experiences with loved
>ones" are at the core of people's rationale for travel.

Aha! But it does tell you how you can improve the museum. Shift mental gears,
and
ask yourself if your museum is designed to be used by these happy groups, or by
a solitary curator (I don't know your museum, so excuse me if I assume
wrongly).

Like many of us here, I've found the same phenomena as you while studying
visitors.
At first they were perplexing, then depressing, but ultimately they were
opportunities
for better understanding.

*************************************************************
Doug Hoy              Evaluation           National Museum of
[log in to unmask]           &              Science & Technology
(613)998-6863v         Research       P.O.Box 9724, Station T
(613)990-3654f                          Ottawa K1G 5A3 CANADA
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