Families Learning With Staff at Mathematics Exhibits

Staff facilitators and educators are a vital yet overlooked educational resource in museums, science centers, and other informal educational spaces. Little research has been done assessing how staff can impact visitors and/or help them learn from exhibits. To explore this knowledge gap, researchers studied unstructured conversations between staff and visitors interacting with a museum exhibit.

The researchers partnered with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) and Oregon State University (OSU) to develop a model for staff-facilitated learning in museums and then test this model with visitors. The project, called Researching the Value of Educator Actors on Learning (REVEAL), focused on visitors improving their algebraic thinking. The study was grounded in two theories: The first, interactional sociolinguistics, says that defining relationships and negotiating roles in the conversation often occurs even before people start communicating information. The second, asset-based education, is the broad idea that people with different cultural backgrounds can learn differently and bring unique knowledge to an interaction. The researchers asked two major questions: (1) What strategies can staff use to help families learn at museum exhibits that account for existing family learning and culture? and (2) What social factors influence staff-facilitated learning within families?

Using a design-based research approach, the researchers collected data at a science center in Portland, Oregon, over the course of 5 months. The researchers used video, surveys, and observational sessions to gather the data. Two major types of analyses were performed on the data during the study. For the first type, iterative refinement, the researchers looked at and talked about how educators interacted with visitors on a weekly basis. The second type, retrospective analysis, occurred after data collection was complete. This analysis continued to refine the educational model used by staff, while also examining the video data, coding, and discussing it in light of the existing model.

Five main strategies emerged related to how staff could help families learn while interacting with exhibits: orient, challenge, provide explanation, show appreciation, and establish visitor ownership. “Orient” involved staff introducing and/or providing families with an overview of the exhibit. “Challenge” had staff presenting a challenge that families could solve at the exhibit. For “provide explanation,” staff shared mathematical information with families. “Show appreciation” had staff encouraging families in interacting with the exhibits. Finally, “establish visitor ownership” involved staff encouraging visitor agency during their visit.

In terms of social factors that influenced learning, five factors also emerged from the data: exhibit, size of group, age of children, visitor social goals, and adult visitor roles. “Exhibit” meant that the type of exhibit influenced visitor interaction. “Size of group” related to how smaller families interacted with exhibits in ways that were different from larger families' interactions. For “age of children,” younger children often interacted differently with exhibits than older children. For “visitor social goals,” families had different intentions when interacting with exhibits, such as building mathematics knowledge versus having fun. Lastly, “adult visitor roles” referred to adults adopting different roles, including facilitator, collaborator, or supporter, which impacted the way the staff interacted with adults and guided the experience.