Adults' Expectations and Perceptions of a Visit While Accompanying a Child to a Children'S Museum

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of adults who bring children to children's museums. 51 participants aged 20 and above filled out a pre- and post-questionnaire regarding their expectations and later actualizations of epistemic, social, and emotional benefits. The participants reported on benefits for themselves as well as their children. These expected and actualized benefits were then compared to the participant's rating of total museum value to determine which variable significantly contributed to their perception of museum value. Overall, epistemic benefits for both children and adults were found to be significantly different from pre- to post. Child emotional expectations significantly contributed to total museum value, as did actualized adult social and emotional expectations. The total amount of benefits was found to be significantly correlated with museum value. Limitations included questionnaire collection being limited to weekends, no child perspectives included in data, non-visitors excluded from data, and the pre questionnaire could potentially have influenced the results of the post-questionnaire. Implications involve insights for children's museum programmers to better understand both the adult and child's expectations as well as what they perceive the museum to be actually providing. Future directions involve including children, non-visitors, collecting on weekdays, and recording time in and out of museum.