Open Forum

I'm a graduate student who also works at a Nature and Science Museum. For an upcoming school project, I'm looking to gather some information around whether other institutions evaluate programs that incorporate the arts into other subject programming. Big picture, I wonder if incorporating the arts can make a program more engaging.

Do you evaluate programs that incorporate the arts?
What are the methodologies of those evaluations? 
What are the results of those evaluations?

Thank you!

Emily Prengaman

------------------------------
Emily Prengaman
Educator/Performer
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
------------------------------

Hi Emily,

The Portal to the Public project at Pacific Science Center in Seattle, WA received funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to hold public programs in which artists engage with our visitors in our science center setting. There are visitor and artist evaluation components to this project. I'm happy to talk more about what we're doing (annajohnson@pacsci.org) and would be interested to hear some of your findings.

Thanks!
Anna

------------------------------
Anna Johnson
Portal to the Public Specialist
Pacific Science Center
Seattle WA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-20-2017 02:17 PM
From: Emily Prengaman
Subject: Evaluating Museum Programs that Incorporate Art

I'm a graduate student who also works at a Nature and Science Museum. For an upcoming school project, I'm looking to gather some information around whether other institutions evaluate programs that incorporate the arts into other subject programming. Big picture, I wonder if incorporating the arts can make a program more engaging.

Do you evaluate programs that incorporate the arts?
What are the methodologies of those evaluations? 
What are the results of those evaluations?

Thank you!

Emily Prengaman

------------------------------
Emily Prengaman
Educator/Performer
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
------------------------------

Hey Emily,
Not sure if this is exactly what you have in mind, but there are quite a few museums using museum theatre as a means for engaging visitors. I know many of these programs have done evaluative studies to assess the impact. I'd be happy to talk with you more. I've got a bunch of evaluations from when I did my masters project. 
Let me know!
Amber

------------------------------
Amber Parham
Museum Educator/Performer
Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Denver CO
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-21-2017 10:24 AM
From: Anna Johnson
Subject: Evaluating Museum Programs that Incorporate Art

Hi Emily,

The Portal to the Public project at Pacific Science Center in Seattle, WA received funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to hold public programs in which artists engage with our visitors in our science center setting. There are visitor and artist evaluation components to this project. I'm happy to talk more about what we're doing (annajohnson@pacsci.org) and would be interested to hear some of your findings.

Thanks!
Anna

------------------------------
Anna Johnson
Portal to the Public Specialist
Pacific Science Center
Seattle WA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-20-2017 02:17 PM
From: Emily Prengaman
Subject: Evaluating Museum Programs that Incorporate Art

I'm a graduate student who also works at a Nature and Science Museum. For an upcoming school project, I'm looking to gather some information around whether other institutions evaluate programs that incorporate the arts into other subject programming. Big picture, I wonder if incorporating the arts can make a program more engaging.

Do you evaluate programs that incorporate the arts?
What are the methodologies of those evaluations? 
What are the results of those evaluations?

Thank you!

Emily Prengaman

------------------------------
Emily Prengaman
Educator/Performer
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
------------------------------

Hi Amber,
Thank you for the offer, quantitative evaluations are exactly what I'm looking for, from the results of those evals to their structure and methodologies. Maybe we can check in on Monday, since we do happily work together!

------------------------------
Emily Prengaman
educator
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-22-2017 09:20 AM
From: Amber Parham
Subject: Evaluating Museum Programs that Incorporate Art

Hey Emily,
Not sure if this is exactly what you have in mind, but there are quite a few museums using museum theatre as a means for engaging visitors. I know many of these programs have done evaluative studies to assess the impact. I'd be happy to talk with you more. I've got a bunch of evaluations from when I did my masters project. 
Let me know!
Amber

------------------------------
Amber Parham
Museum Educator/Performer
Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Denver CO
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-21-2017 10:24 AM
From: Anna Johnson
Subject: Evaluating Museum Programs that Incorporate Art

Hi Emily,

The Portal to the Public project at Pacific Science Center in Seattle, WA received funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to hold public programs in which artists engage with our visitors in our science center setting. There are visitor and artist evaluation components to this project. I'm happy to talk more about what we're doing (annajohnson@pacsci.org) and would be interested to hear some of your findings.

Thanks!
Anna

------------------------------
Anna Johnson
Portal to the Public Specialist
Pacific Science Center
Seattle WA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-20-2017 02:17 PM
From: Emily Prengaman
Subject: Evaluating Museum Programs that Incorporate Art

I'm a graduate student who also works at a Nature and Science Museum. For an upcoming school project, I'm looking to gather some information around whether other institutions evaluate programs that incorporate the arts into other subject programming. Big picture, I wonder if incorporating the arts can make a program more engaging.

Do you evaluate programs that incorporate the arts?
What are the methodologies of those evaluations? 
What are the results of those evaluations?

Thank you!

Emily Prengaman

------------------------------
Emily Prengaman
Educator/Performer
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
------------------------------

Hi, Emily,

You have some good resources in this thread already - and it sounds like colleagues at your institution have some good leads, too!

The short answer to your question is "yes" - an increasing number of institutions are evaluating their work when it either incorporates the arts or focuses on art as the primary content area. And that's because it does seem to add value to experiences, whether through providing increased or different engagement, supporting creative (divergent, non-linear) thinking, sparking affective or emotional connections, or helping people to skirt their self-perceived barriers to other content (e.g., if I'm "bad at science" - but I can understand light wavelengths by mixing paint colors).

Here are a couple more resources to explore:

• When I search http://www.informalscience.org/ for the keyword art* under evaluations, I get about 700+ search results. Wow! Those will all be evaluation reports, abstracts, or instruments related to art in some way.
• Local to you in Denver, you have access to some great peer learning opportunities in the form of the Denver Evaluation Network group (http://www.denverevaluationnetwork.org/about.html)
• If you're under your institution's AAM membership, you should be able to join the CARE professional network. That's the Committee for Audience Research and Evaluation (http://www.aam-us.org/resources/professional-networks/care). That will connect you to museum evaluators who might help you on your journey, as well as learning opportunities they produce.
• And, if you want to dive deeply into evaluating arts (or any!) experiences in museums, you can also consider joining or using resources from the Visitor Studies Association (http://www.visitorstudies.org/ - full disclosure, I chair the membership committee for this one).

If you would like to connect with someone whose entire job is arts-related evaluation, I'd be happy to go offline and help connect you to some more specific resources and individuals who can help you explore these topics.

Happy learning!

RY

------------------------------
Renae Youngs
Director of Research and Evaluation
Minnesota State Arts Board
Saint Paul MN
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-21-2017 10:24 AM
From: Anna Johnson
Subject: Evaluating Museum Programs that Incorporate Art

Hi Emily,

The Portal to the Public project at Pacific Science Center in Seattle, WA received funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to hold public programs in which artists engage with our visitors in our science center setting. There are visitor and artist evaluation components to this project. I'm happy to talk more about what we're doing (annajohnson@pacsci.org) and would be interested to hear some of your findings.

Thanks!
Anna

------------------------------
Anna Johnson
Portal to the Public Specialist
Pacific Science Center
Seattle WA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-20-2017 02:17 PM
From: Emily Prengaman
Subject: Evaluating Museum Programs that Incorporate Art

I'm a graduate student who also works at a Nature and Science Museum. For an upcoming school project, I'm looking to gather some information around whether other institutions evaluate programs that incorporate the arts into other subject programming. Big picture, I wonder if incorporating the arts can make a program more engaging.

Do you evaluate programs that incorporate the arts?
What are the methodologies of those evaluations? 
What are the results of those evaluations?

Thank you!

Emily Prengaman

------------------------------
Emily Prengaman
Educator/Performer
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
------------------------------

Good Morning Renae,
Thank you for sending me all of these resources, I'm looking forward to digging into them.

best,
Emily

------------------------------
Emily Prengaman
Educator/Performer
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Denver, CO
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-22-2017 10:31 AM
From: Renae Youngs
Subject: Evaluating Museum Programs that Incorporate Art

Hi, Emily,

You have some good resources in this thread already - and it sounds like colleagues at your institution have some good leads, too!

The short answer to your question is "yes" - an increasing number of institutions are evaluating their work when it either incorporates the arts or focuses on art as the primary content area. And that's because it does seem to add value to experiences, whether through providing increased or different engagement, supporting creative (divergent, non-linear) thinking, sparking affective or emotional connections, or helping people to skirt their self-perceived barriers to other content (e.g., if I'm "bad at science" - but I can understand light wavelengths by mixing paint colors).

Here are a couple more resources to explore:

• When I search http://www.informalscience.org/ for the keyword art* under evaluations, I get about 700+ search results. Wow! Those will all be evaluation reports, abstracts, or instruments related to art in some way.
• Local to you in Denver, you have access to some great peer learning opportunities in the form of the Denver Evaluation Network group (http://www.denverevaluationnetwork.org/about.html)
• If you're under your institution's AAM membership, you should be able to join the CARE professional network. That's the Committee for Audience Research and Evaluation (http://www.aam-us.org/resources/professional-networks/care). That will connect you to museum evaluators who might help you on your journey, as well as learning opportunities they produce.
• And, if you want to dive deeply into evaluating arts (or any!) experiences in museums, you can also consider joining or using resources from the Visitor Studies Association (http://www.visitorstudies.org/ - full disclosure, I chair the membership committee for this one).

If you would like to connect with someone whose entire job is arts-related evaluation, I'd be happy to go offline and help connect you to some more specific resources and individuals who can help you explore these topics.

Happy learning!

RY

------------------------------
Renae Youngs
Director of Research and Evaluation
Minnesota State Arts Board
Saint Paul MN
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-21-2017 10:24 AM
From: Anna Johnson
Subject: Evaluating Museum Programs that Incorporate Art

Hi Emily,

The Portal to the Public project at Pacific Science Center in Seattle, WA received funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to hold public programs in which artists engage with our visitors in our science center setting. There are visitor and artist evaluation components to this project. I'm happy to talk more about what we're doing (annajohnson@pacsci.org) and would be interested to hear some of your findings.

Thanks!
Anna

------------------------------
Anna Johnson
Portal to the Public Specialist
Pacific Science Center
Seattle WA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-20-2017 02:17 PM
From: Emily Prengaman
Subject: Evaluating Museum Programs that Incorporate Art

I'm a graduate student who also works at a Nature and Science Museum. For an upcoming school project, I'm looking to gather some information around whether other institutions evaluate programs that incorporate the arts into other subject programming. Big picture, I wonder if incorporating the arts can make a program more engaging.

Do you evaluate programs that incorporate the arts?
What are the methodologies of those evaluations? 
What are the results of those evaluations?

Thank you!

Emily Prengaman

------------------------------
Emily Prengaman
Educator/Performer
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
------------------------------

Hi Emily,

Thank you for this post. I've been thinking a lot with colleagues here at the Center for the Future of Museums--and with the Alliance and within the field more broadly--about the impact of the arts on educational programming. You might find some perspectives and examples at the Future of Education website, which is transitioning its content onto the Alliance Labs blog (for example, in this post). I don't evaluate programs that incorporate the arts, so I can't answer your second or third questions.

But, I want to share some links in response to your big-picture wonderings about whether incorporating the arts can make an educational program more engaging. Arts integration continues to be an urgent topic in formal and informal education. Articles in the Washington Post and on KQED's Mind/Shift website discuss research on how arts education makes learning goals come alive for learners.

The Museum Schools Association highlights how schools and museums work together toward arts integration in multiple ways. You might check out this post on the CFM Blog detailing how museum schools are practicing arts integration. My colleague Sage Morgan-Hubbard and I visited The Museum School in the Atlanta area during the Southeastern leg of the Future of Education Road Trip this January. You might reach out to them about evaluation ideas.

Following this post as you explore evaluation opportunities! Thanks!

------------------------------
Nicole Ivy
Museum Futurist
American Alliance of Museums
Arlington VA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-20-2017 02:17 PM
From: Emily Prengaman
Subject: Evaluating Museum Programs that Incorporate Art

I'm a graduate student who also works at a Nature and Science Museum. For an upcoming school project, I'm looking to gather some information around whether other institutions evaluate programs that incorporate the arts into other subject programming. Big picture, I wonder if incorporating the arts can make a program more engaging.

Do you evaluate programs that incorporate the arts?
What are the methodologies of those evaluations? 
What are the results of those evaluations?

Thank you!

Emily Prengaman

------------------------------
Emily Prengaman
Educator/Performer
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
------------------------------