- Title
- Learning in outdoor museums : Understanding the browsing tourist as intelligent forager
- Creator
- Hollick, Mary
- Date
- 2009
- Type
- Text; Conference paper
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/58898
- Identifier
- vital:3692
- Identifier
- ISBN:1863081526
- Abstract
- This paper presents research into learning engagement by adult ‘browsers’ at Australia’s leading outdoor museum, Sovereign Hill, in order to better understand what learning strategies adult visitors are employing and how the museum could further support their learning outcomes. Learning constitutes a significant reason to visit and underpins satisfaction (Hein; Hooper-Greenhill). However, for any learning to take place, the learner has to be paying attention, so museums need to understand how they arouse visitors’ attention. The paper argues that, while outdoor museums have particular attributes for generating interest in learning, a good deal more needs to be understood about visitor’s ‘entry agenda’ their links to learning outcomes. The research revealed a number of findings which supported these concerns. The respondents exhibited characteristics of free choice learners and utilised many search strategies derived from optimal foraging theory. Their visit had a sufficiently transformational effect in that 39% of respondents expressed an interest in exploring further learning after their departure, when only 14% of the same respondents were motivated to visit by ‘an interest in learning’ about history in general or the theme presented at Sovereign Hill in particular. Findings also indicate that the learning, while drawing from the three dimensional setting and activities, was largely socially constructed, within family groups of visitors.
- Publisher
- Esplanade Hotel, Fremantle, Western Australia Promaco Conventions
- Relation
- Paper presented at 18th Annual CAUTHE Conference 2009 - See Change: Tourism & Hospitality in a Dynamic World, Esplanade Hotel, Fremantle, Western Australia 10th-13th February 2009
- Rights
- Copyright Promaco Conventions
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Subject
- Outdoor museums; Learning engagement; Free choice learning; Visitor entry agenda; Rounds; Silverman
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