Project file - Evaluation of the Expo “Baby animals”

Commissioner

• Exhibition development team of the Museum of Natural Sciences

Research context

Babyanimals is an exhibition which particularly targets 3 to 8 years old visitors. During the making of, a lot of energy was invested to adapt the exhibition to this target group. A formative evaluation was carried out by for example going to schools in order to make children test the narratives and comics that would feature in the exhibition.

Aim

Together with developers of the exhibition, both the process of the making as well the way the young visitors engage with the exhibition are evaluated. Therefore, two methods were combined: 

• On the one hand, a survey which aims to sound what the children liked, what they learned, etc. was carried out
• On the other, observations of the young visitors enabled us to analyze how they behave in the exhibition, which exhibits function better, and which ones less, which time spent a each exhibit, which exhibits are more used than others, to see if the labels are red, if an exhibition triggers any interaction with the accompanying adults etc.

Method of data collection

Group interviews with the children and their families
Observations of young visitors (3-8 years old)

Results

• 281 interviews (which enables us to gather the opinion of 576 children)
• 93 observations of young visitors

Contact

• Cécile Gerin, Exhibition development team of the Museum of Natural Sciences

Research period

Field work: October-November 2013 (survey and observations)
Report: June 2014

Reports

• Full report **