Understanding the Effects of ‘Behind-the-Scenes’ Tours on Visitor Understanding of Collections and Research

Gallimore, Emily Jane; Wilkinson, Clare

Abstract

© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Collections can be a ‘mystery’ to many museum visitors, which makes investing in behind-the-scenes tours an opportunity for increasing awareness of the role museums play in scientific research. Drawing on the theories of contextual learning, situated learning, and legitimate peripheral participation, we offer insights from an exploratory study that investigated the potential effectiveness and practicalities of using behind-the-scenes tours to improve visitor understandings of museum research. This forum paper reports on emerging results from visitor questionnaires and staff interviews across six museums where we explored the experience offered by behind-the-scenes tours as an effective learning environment. These results suggest that behind the scenes tours remain under-researched and highlight the need for further investigation into the value of this visitor experience.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 25, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Apr 10, 2019
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: Apr 9, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 2, 2021
• Journal: Curator
• Print ISSN: 0011-3069
• Electronic ISSN: 2151-6952
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 62
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 105-115
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12307
• Keywords: science communication, museums, behind the scenes, museums tours, science learning, public engagement
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/847937
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12307
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: [Wilkinson, C. and Gallimore, E.-J. (2019) Understanding the effects of ‘behind-the-scenes’ tours on visitor understanding of collections and research. Curator: The Museum Journal, 62 (2). pp. 105-115], which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12307. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
• Contract Date: Apr 9, 2019