Practical Evaluation Guide : Tools for Museums and Other Informal Educational Settings

by Diamond, Judy

• ISBN13: 9780761989400
• ISBN10: 0761989404
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-01-01
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc

Summary

Visitor evaluations provide clues to the effectiveness of exhibits and programs, and provide insights into how people learn in informal educational settings. In Practical Evaluation Guide, Judy Diamond presents the basic principles and techniques needed to design, implement and present an evaluation project. Diamond's clearly and simply written guide gives you the tools needed for studying the behavior and learning of people in informal educational settings, including how to plan an evaluation, evaluate evaluators, perform visitor observations, conduct interviews, design questionnaires, sample audiences, analyze qualitative and quantitative data, write reports, and much more. An extremely useful tool for anyone seeking guidance on how to set up competent, reliable evaluations in informal educational settings.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	9	(2)
Preface and Acknowledgments	11	(4)
Planning and Evaluation Project	15	(10)
Evaluating the Evaluator	18	(2)
The Evaluation Proposal	20	(2)
Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluation Methods	22	(3)
Informal Learning	25	(8)
Protecting and Selecting Subjects	33	(18)
Protecting Subjects' Rights	33	(7)
How Many Subjects?	40	(3)
Selecting Subjects for Quantitative Studies	43	(5)
Selecting Subjects for Qualitative Studies	48	(3)
Observational Tools	51	(32)
Counting Heads	51	(1)
Tracking Movements	52	(4)
Brief Observations	56	(6)
Recording Detailed Observations	62	(2)
Recording Equipment	64	(2)
Observation Categories	66	(7)
Behavior Sampling Methods	73	(2)
Validity and Reliability	75	(4)
Participant Observation	79	(4)
Interviews and Questionnaires	83	(32)
Interview Guidelines	83	(3)
Informal Conversational Interviews	86	(1)
Semi-Structured Interviews	87	(1)
Open-Ended Interviews	88	(1)
Sturctured Interviews	89	(1)
A Multicultural Case Study	89	(2)
Projective Measures	91	(3)
Expert Assessments	94	(2)
Questionnaire Guidelines	96	(4)
Writing Questions	100	(15)
Measuring Learning	116	(18)
Measuring Recall and Recognition	118	(3)
The Clinical Interview	121	(3)
Cognitive Maps	124	(6)
Task Analysis	130	(3)
Presenting and Analyzing Data	133	(24)
Quantitative Data: Summarizing Data in Graphs	133	(8)
Quantitative Data: Summarizing Data in Tables	141	(6)
Quantitative Data: Comparing Data Sets	147	(4)
Qualitative Data	151	(6)
Preparing an Evaluation Report	157	(6)
Writing an Evaluation Report for Publication	157	(6)
Afterword	163	(2)
References Cited	165	(9)
Other Publication of Interest	174	(8)
Figure and Table Credits	182	(1)
Index	183	(6)
Index of Authors Cited	189	(2)
About the Author	191