Training Interpreters to Increase Visitor Knowledge During Cave Tours

When people visit natural attractions—such as parks or caves—tour guides or interpreters frequently influence what they learn from the experience. The training and preparation of these tour guides can significantly shape their interpretive strategy and ability, which in turn influences the topics visitors learn about and the depth of knowledge they gain. The authors of this article hypothesized that managers of natural attractions could make changes to the way they train tour guides and content of tours to emphasize environmental issues of special concern. These changes may lead to increased visitor understanding of local environments, which may facilitate more positive attitudes toward pro-environmental behaviors and policies.

The authors chose to explore education on karst landscapes because they are highly sensitive to human activity, important sources of drinking water, and widely unknown to the American public. Karst landscapes are areas where water has eroded underground limestone, producing a complex and fragile environment that includes caves, underground streams, and sinkholes. These areas cover about 20% of the land surface in the United States.

Since karst landscapes are generally associated with caves, cave tours are both a logical and high-quality opportunity to educate the public on karst. Cave tours are a form of free-choice learning, in that visitors explore them based on their own interests. Previous research indicates that the quality of free-choice learning is closely linked to visitors' physical surroundings, leading the authors to surmise that caves would be an excellent place to study learning about karst. The researchers selected four tour caves in the United States, attempting to provide a representative sample of tour caves based on variables such as site ownership and average tour size.

The researchers assessed visitors' knowledge about caves and karst before and after a tour. They distributed questionnaires that asked both multiple-choice questions (e.g., “How large is the area above ground that directly affects a cave?”) and open-ended questions (e.g., “Please describe a karst landscape”), as well as demographic questions. After completing this initial data collection with a minimum of 135 respondents per site, the researchers revised tour scripts to include more information about karst landscapes. They also provided tour guides with extra training and educational materials about karst.

After allowing tour guides several weeks to adjust their tours and master the new content, the researchers revisited the sites and conducted the same pre- and post-tour questionnaires with a minimum of 125 visitors per site. Researchers then used statistical methods to compare visitor learning before and after changes to the tours. The researchers gathered a total of 972 fully completed questionnaires.

The results from pre-test questionnaires supported the authors' assessment that most visitors to caves had little pre-existing knowledge about karst landscapes. Additionally, the results show that the changes to tour guide training and scripts had significant positive effects on visitor learning. Before researchers implemented changes, only 15% of visitors showed an increase in knowledge about karst after the tours. After implementing the training and script changes, nearly 80% of visitors showed an increase in karst knowledge after the tours. There was some variation among different cave sites in learning improvements; the authors hypothesize that the cave with the smallest increases in visitor knowledge had lengthy tours and more imposing cave features, distracting from karst landscapes.

Although the authors attempted to select four caves that represented a wide range of site characteristics, other cave sites—and other natural attractions in general—may have different qualities that affect visitor learning (either positively or negatively). Additionally, this study only examined improvements to visitor education about karst; other environmental and scientific topics may present unique challenges for tour guides. More research is needed to investigate the effectiveness of tour guide training and script changes in other contexts.

The authors recommended that managers of natural attractions provide professional development opportunities for their tour guides, similar to the training used in the study. Furthermore, they recommended that tour guide training sessions should teach about the natural area and its associated environmental problems in depth, in addition to providing practical advice for delivering tour content. Finally, they suggested that managers should emphasize tours' landscape and surroundings to take advantage of improvements in free-choice learning that come from connection with physical surroundings.