Open Forum

Hey all!

We are looking for ideas on how to survey school groups that come for tours. What we need is a way to capture measurable data to show that museum visits matter. We've read all about what Crystal Bridges did (we are an art museum as well), but we need ideas on what to include in the survey or even how to do it.

To show growth in understanding or critical thinking skills how can we get pre-visit results? Do we give the teacher the same questions to give to students before a visit that we give to them right after the visit? While we are the only art museum in town we are not the only cultural institution (in Charleston, SC we have history museums, the original settlement site, historical locations with pirate connections, the aquarium). We did have a survey in place for some of our in-school programs to show that they learned about art over the course of the program (multiple months), but we need something for a one-off visit.

We do have to charge admission for school groups, even though it's a reduced price, but are offering free admission and transportation to Title I schools. We need grant money to off-set those costs but they all want info on why these kids need to come to an art museum. The staff all knows why, the teachers probably even know why, but we have to have data to PROVE it. Any and all thoughts are welcome. Thanks!

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Rebecca Hiester
Curatorial Assistant
Gibbes Museum of Art
Charleston SC
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Rebecca,

I would suggest that if you are looking for in-depth data, such as critical thinking growth, you identify a particular school or schools that historically brings students to your museum and not focus on everyone that attends.  My museum has several programs that allow students to tour at reduced rates.  All teachers receive a general questionnaire on Survey Monkey after they come for a tour.  This provides us feedback on: scheduling, reception, tour content, docent quality, pre-tour packet, etc. 

For the program that I manage, we do a more in-depth data collection from students.  This data is used to support funding for the program.  We assess PK, grade 1, and grade 5 at 4 of the 9 schools in the program.  Because these students come on field trips every school year, focusing on assessing those particular grade levels helps us get a baseline and compare the growth over both one year and multiple years.  This assessment includes: an interest inventory to show how they feel about looking/talking about art, making art, visiting a museum and gardens; questions regarding key vocabulary; and we also show an image from our collection and have the student go through a written version of The Feldman Approach to Viewing Art (that is the method we use on our tours). 

We work with an outside evaluator to develop the assessment tool.  Museum staff administer the assessment both at the beginning of the year and the end of the year to the same group of students.  This data is then coded and sent onto the evaluator who looks for trends and writes a report for our funders.  Because we have been working with these schools for many years, we can track students from PK to 5th grade if they are still attending that school.

So, you can see starting with one or two schools that you have a history with is helpful.  It is time consuming to administer the assessment (4-5 minutes per PK or 1st grader- 5th can be done whole group in about 15 minutes), but if staff does it, rather than classroom teachers, it will be a little more objective.  Ideally, you would have a third party conduct the assessment, but that is often not feasible.

If you have any questions about what we do here, please email me: dhause@cummermuseum.org

Hope that was helpful!

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Dulcie Hause
Museum Educator
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
Jacksonville FL