Education Research

Education Research

Why it’s important

• Is our education working?• Learn what our visitors know and think• Make best use of education resources• Provide reliable feedback to make

improvements• Provide evidence of success for others (Zoo

Directors/ Funders/ Sponsors/Media

First steps

• What is your research question?• How will you answer this question?• Which visitors do you need to study?• How will you analyse and present the data?

Ask your visitors• If you want to test knowledge• If you want to find out the strength of visitors’ opinions• If you want in-depth responses (qualitative data)

MethodsSurveys, Interviews, Unstructured Feedback, Focus Groups, Personal Meaning Maps

Data can be quantitative and qualitative

Education Research – How?

Strengths

• Data collection can be quick depending on method• Measure what people think or feel• Quantitative data (rating scales) can be easy to input and

analyse

Weakness

• Badly designed surveys provide misleading results • Qualitative data is probably the most difficult and time

consuming to analyse

Gathering information from visitors

Survey Design: Common problems

Response Bias

Where a survey question is constructed in such a way that one answer is much more likely than another‘Don’t you agree that zoo animals are amazing?’

Demand characteristics

Where the question leads a visitor into what the researcher wants to hear‘Do you think that the zoo is an important conservation organization?’

Social Desirability

Where one answer is much more socially acceptable than others. ‘Do you recycle at home?’

Acquiescence Bias

Where questions are laid out in a way that allows visitors to give the same response all the way down

Survey Design: Common problems

In your opinion is the jaguar

Sad Happy Ugly Beautiful Boring Interesting Weak Strong Scary Friendly Dangerous Gentle

All surveys are essentially self-report (visitors are responding about themselves) and some questions are not suitable

Any question that relies on visitors giving their intention to do something ‘As a result of your visit, will you now recycle at home?’

Survey Design: Common problems

Any question that relies on the visitor understanding a difficult concept to answer accurately

‘Do you think you have learnt a lot today?’

(What does the visitor understand by ‘learnt’ and how do they judge what ‘a lot’ is – this might be different for everyone)

Avoid ambiguous questions ‘Do you regularly visit the zoo?’ (what does regularly mean?)

How much do you know about: keeping wild animals as pets?(1 = know nothing to 5 = know everything)

Survey Design: Common problems

Avoid asking two questions in one‘Did this experience increase your interest in learning more about whales and the oceans?’

(What if I think it increased my interest in whales but not the ocean?)

In small groups read the three questions on the hand-out

Discuss any problems with the wording

Decide how you could improve the questions

Share you ideas with the rest of the group

Activity Time!

Survey question examples

1. ¿Te gustan los tapires y los jaguares?

Si No

Survey question examples

2. ¿Qué otros animals compiten por lugares de anidamiento con los guacamayos escarlata?

(a) Otros guacamayos (b) iguanas (c) avispas (d) a, b, & c.

3. ¿Cuánto dirías que sabes sobre los animales del zoo de Guadalajara?

a) nada b) un poco c) una cantidad moderada d) mucho

Survey question examples

Survey question examples

Feedback

1. An example of asking two question in one.

2. Responses do not include all possible responses: for example if a visitor wants to select only two of the possible three options.

3. Relies on all visitors having the same understanding of terms for example ‘ know’ and ‘a little’.

Watching what visitors doUnobtrusive – means that visitors are unaware they are being watched

• You want to understand visitor behaviour • You want to see if an educational activity is effective• You want to compare (quantitatively) different exhibits/signs• You want to look at the things that might predict visitors behaviour

Watching and Listening

At animal exhibits - the strongest point of appeal for visitors

Watching and Listening - where

What we can measure

• The proportion of visitors that stop at different things (animals, interpretation, talks)

• How long they stop for• What they do while they stop

Strength of Observations

• Easy, quick and repeatable method• Quantitative data – good for analysis• Allows you to see what visitors are actually doing, rather

than what they tell you• Virtually no bias

Watching and Listening

Weakness of Observations

• Risk of misinterpreting behaviour unless we listen to conversations

Watching and Listening

How do visitors behave at an exhibition?What do they think about the exhibition?

Mixed methods: Visitor observation and unstructured feedback (post-it notes)

Watching and Listening

Watching and Listening

Negative“‘Very, very disturbing, the images will give the children nightmares. This is a family place.”

Reflection“What a stunning and effective display. It certainly makes you think!”

Random sampling • Every third group that crosses a fixed point • The focal person is the first person in that group to make a positive

directional movement

Attracting Power• How many visitors stop for 3 secs• Head or eyes towards the exhibit

Holding Time• How long visitor attention stays focused on the exhibit

Method

Animal Activity: • Asleep and no movement• Still with limited movement: ears or tail twitching, head moving• Deliberate movement in enclosure: eating, grooming, moving

around • Energetic movement in enclosure

Animal Proximity: • Species right in front of the public – up against the barrier• First third of enclosure• Second third of enclosure• Back third of enclosure

Method

ObservationAttracting Power Yes/No

Proximity1 = immediate front2 = first third3 = middle third4 = back third

Activity1 = asleep2 = awake and still3 = slow movements4 = vigorous activity

Holding Time(secs)

1234567891011121314151617181920

Species: Date: Time: Weather:

Activity Time!

ObservationAttracting Power Yes/No

Proximity1 = immediate front2 = first third3 = middle third4 = back third

Activity1 = asleep2 = awake and still3 = slow movements4 = vigorous activity

Holding Time(secs)

1 yes 1 1 102 yes 1 1 123 yes 1 1 54 yes 3 3 125 no 3 36 yes 3 2 107 yes 3 2 148 no 4 39 no 3 3

10 yes 2 3 4011 yes 2 3 1212 yes 2 3 2413 yes 1 1 814 yes 1 1 1415 yes 1 1 616 no 2 317 no 4 318 yes 3 4 2019 yes 4 4 1220 yes 3 4 24

Species: Date: Time: Weather:

Attracting Power (%) Holding Time(secs)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

75

12

Reporting

19.216.94

54

93.45

77.09

27.5

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Attracting Power (%) Holding Power (Sec) Percentage of Interactive used (%)

Film

Quiz

Reporting

Holding time (seconds)

Bitgood, S., Finlay, T., & Woehr, D. (1986). Design and evaluation of exhibit labels. Technical report: Centre for Social Design, Jacksonville State University (87-40c).

Bitgood, S., Patterson, D., & Benefield, A. (1988). Exhibit design and visitor behavior: Empirical relationships. Environment and Behavior, 20(4), 474-491. Clayton, S., Fraser, J., & Saunders, C.D. (2009). Zoo experiences: Conversations, connections, and concern for animals. Zoo Biology, 28(5), 377-397.

Crawford, J. (2007) Kea Exhibits: The dynamics of kea behaviour and interpretive signage on visitor interest http://www.keaconservation.co.nz/pdfs/jo_crawford_kea_research_final.pdf

Esson, M., & Moss, A. (2013). The risk of delivering disturbing messages to zoo family audiences. Journal of Environmental Education, 44(2), 79-96.

Marino, L., Lilienfeld, S.O., Malamud, R., Nobis, N., & Broglio, R. (2010). Do zoos and aquariums promote attitude change in visitors? A critical evaluation of the American zoo and aquarium study. Society and Animals, 18, 126-138.

Moss, A., & Esson, M. (2010). Visitor interest in zoo animals and the implications for collection planning and zoo education programmes. Zoo Biology, 29(6), 715-731.

Some further reading