Open Forum

We are developing an African American Heritage Trail and are looking for evaluation tools. Does anyone have any advice about how to evaluate such a program? ------------------------------------------- Andrea Douglas Principal Charlottesville VA -------------------------------------------

What exactly is the nature of the trail? Is it a series of markers or a specific tour led by a guide?

The most important thing is to identify what you want users to take away from their experience? Do you want them to be inspired, take action, come away with knowledge, etc? Once you know what you hope the trail does for users, then think about what that will look like - what will people do or say that would let you know that they are inspired? and then try to measure that.  You won't always be able to do this in a quantifiable way, but those are the basics to any good evaluation.


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Juline Chevalier
Curator of Education
Nasher Museum of Art Duke University
Durham NC
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-10-2014 07:22 AM
From: Andrea Douglas
Subject: Program Evaluation tools

We are developing an African American Heritage Trail and are looking for evaluation tools. Does anyone have any advice about how to evaluate such a program?

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Andrea Douglas
Principal
Charlottesville VA
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Andrea,

Look into Randi Korn. She is a good resource for research and evaluations directed at museums wanting to increase their impact. http://www.randikorn.com/.

Best regards,

Mary Pugh

Exhibit Designer
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
Williamsburg, Virginia USA

The Committee on Audience Research and Evaluation is a great resource for you. We should have some resources on the AAM website. I would also suggest looking into the Visitor Studies Association.

-- Liz

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Elizabeth Kollmann
Senior Project Manager, Research & Evaluation
Museum of Science
Boston MA
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Hi Andrea,

I find that for evaluation, you will want to a three-step process if possible. Have a brief survey before visitors enter the space on what they hope to learn/what they expect/ how did they find about the program. Then observe them in the program. You can take note on what people seem to be the most engaged in, where trouble spots where, etc. Finally, offer a quick survey at the end to discuss what they liked about it/ recommendations for the future. With any evaluation, offer visitors some type of incentive. Many are much more receptive to providing information if they know they can receive something. I have taken surveys at museums that offer a discounted admission ticket or gift shop discount and some that offered stickers. If you have children participating and you give stickers then you will DEFINITELY get information from their group.

I hope this helps!

Sincerely,

Ashley 
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Ashley Scotto
Education Assistant
Historic Speedwell
Morristown, NJ

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