It was a simple question … and one that defied my expectations.

As a parent, what is more important for museums to focus on: inspiring curiosity in children about the world, or helping children perform better academically?

Except it isn't that simple a question, is it? It is a question weighted with value, and one that considers the different, yet complementary, roles played by museums and formal education.

Everything in my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers made me expect that, if I were to ask this question of museum-going parents, I'd get a fair number to say better academic performance. After all, most museum-going parents are extrinsically motivated, and they tended to talk about those kinds of pragmatic outcomes when they commented on the value of museums.

Thus I suspected some, when asked so bluntly, would stick to those pragmatic goals, while other parents would pause a moment and go "oh, wait … that curiosity piece is actually really important." (I expected intrinsically-motivated parents, in contrast, to be all over the curious response.)

So I included the question in my 2018 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, and I projected about two-thirds of parents to say curiosity, and about a third to say academic performance.

I was wrong.

94% of museum-going parents want museums to focus on inspiring curiosity about the world in their children. Ninety-four percent. That is practically universal.

Surprised? Me too. Ecstatically.

But maybe museum-goers are outliers. After all, they tend to be outliers in other ways. What does the broader population of Americans want museums to focus on? To find out, I included the question in a broader population sample, refining it slightly to include responses from both parents and those without minor children.

76% of Americans agreed that inspiring curiosity about the world was more important than helping children perform better academically.

Or, to put it another way, Americans are three times more likely to want museums to focus on curiosity than academic performance.

This all begs the question … why?

Here's what I think. We all know that these two choices are not mutually exclusive. Ideally, we as a society should work to nurture inherent curiosity in children so that learning is a joy, yielding better academic outcomes (among other things). But over the past couple of decades, emphasis on academic performance has seemed to drown out that curiosity, that intrinsic motivation, in our national discussion on education. Which perhaps makes these results seem so surprising.

These results tell me that Americans highly value the role of curiosity in children's lives. That they realize it is a crucial part of education, and one that, let's be honest, the rigor and structure of school is not particularly well-suited for. Thus, things that cultivate curiosity, such as museums, are a critical underpinning of formal education, and help make successful formal education possible.

I've thought this through as a parent as well, and how museums and formal education work together. The rigor and structure of my son's public elementary school is providing something museums, and I as a parent, simply cannot: incremental, daily, focused, step-by-step learning that is comprehensive. That's extremely valuable. Museums, however, share with us all the amazing thing of being a human in this world, and all that it entails, and inspires my children to want to learn more. Together, that is what education is all about … a realization that curiosity is what helps many of us achieve personal and academic success.

The public values curiosity, and museums' role in cultivating it. Now we need to back up their belief in us by continuing and extending the work that we do while also providing evidence of this impact, and how it supports academic and personal excellence. Not by trying to out-school schools, but by being the effective foundation of curiosity and intrinsic motivation that makes personal and academic success far more likely.



A note about fielding research. I hold dear the idea that research for the field, about the field, should be shared with the field. But that only works when museums work together to make it possible. My thanks to the museums that participated in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, which makes my sharing this research, and fielding broader population samples, possible.

If you value this research, want more of it in the coming years, and want to track your own museum's progress over time, please consider enrolling in the 2019 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers. Enrollment will open in May 2018, and the fee for 2019 will continue to be only $1,000.

The Data Museum is on a short hiatus while I am in the field conducting new research.

Later this spring, you can look forward to findings from:

• 2018 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers
• Comparison broader population sampling
• And a few other projects I'm working on

In the meantime, please check out new reviews I'm sharing at The Curated Bookshelf!

After months of sharing research findings from my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers and broader population samples … what have we learned?

1 - Museums are preaching to the choir. In much of what we do, we appeal to those that are intrinsically motivated to learn. But they are only a sliver of the population and we've pretty much cornered that market. Thus …

2 - We have to do much better identifying extrinsic motivations for learning, meeting those needs, and articulating them in our promotional materials. When considering life stage, this takes three forms:

• Young adults without children: focusing on being interesting places to visit (and revisit) with friends, but also family. This segment is already predisposed to visit, but for true engagement, we need to strengthen that connection.

 

• Older adults:  a surprisingly under-served audience, given they are least likely to have visited a museum in the last year. But also an opportunity to address increasing social and cognitive health needs in a growing segment of our population.

 

• The Parent Bubble: a captive audience of (mostly) extrinsically-motivated parents that we are not retaining as kids age into their tween and teen years. How do we create more meaningful experiences for the parents? How can we meet the different extrinsic needs during tween and teen years (when time together as a family is decreasing)? And how can we extend our product to even more extrinsically-motivated parents of younger children in ways that broaden our reach?

​
3 - We have to get comfortable with practical impact. That is, not only measuring it and using it as an assessment tool in our work, but also philosophically valuing it ourselves. Yes, I absolutely think the content of all museums should be valued for its own sake. But when we are competing with other organizations that can show their practical impact so much more clearly than us, we lose significant resources. So let's celebrate how we, concretely, matter in people's lives, which may mean as a tool to create better life outcomes. Because the thing is, that means we are also likely opening more minds, cultivating compassion and empathy, and creating connection and community. Having practical impacts does not preclude the impact of valuing art/history/science/or anything else for its own sake. Let's celebrate all of those impacts.

4 - And we matter. We matter for a myriad of reasons. For health and wellness. For prosociality. And for helping people to navigate an increasingly complex world with understanding, open minds, compassion, and strong connections to their communities and to others.

Which brings us to what I see as our role in social justice. We cannot claim to be just organizations until we truly provide equal access for all. The impact we have on individuals, and the potential outcomes of an intrinsically-motivated learning mindset, should not be reserved for those who are at the top (or close to it) of the hierarchies I recently shared. Claiming to welcome all is a sham unless we live it both at our museums and by taking our product to those who cannot visit in person. That means taking programs and exhibitions to our communities, not waiting for them to come. Free admission isn't enough.  We can, and should, do much more.

We can also do more in our exhibits and programming by adding individual outcomes to our criteria for planning. Not "our visitors will learn x, y, and/or z," but "will this program expose our visitors to a new culture, a new perspective, a new idea?" Or "will this exhibit make people think, care, or even cry?"

The challenge is, however, that extrinsically-motivated visitors (particularly parents) are not asking for these types of impacts. Not seeking them out. And generally have not experienced those impacts for themselves in museums. If we are going to effect change, we probably shouldn't market it (after all, we have the audience that deliberately seeks it out already), but instead combine those experiences with what extrinsically-motivated visitors specifically want. So that we become a multi-tasking tool of impact.

I'll admit that I have an agenda now in my work. A human agenda. An agenda that has at its focus the amazing thing of being human in this world, and being humane to others in it, through learning and engagement.

And that is why I do what I do. And why I hope others will join me in doing more of this kind of work in support of museums. Because this work is difficult to measure. Yet I suspect there are few things that have those impacts as effectively and efficiently as museums. Yes, there are other things that create those outcomes as well (and are also likely used by parents and caregivers to benefit their children), but what is as effective and efficient? We should figure that out. Soon.

But I need your help to continue this work, as I cannot do it on my own.

I can only field this work when museums join together to provide not only a source for samples, but also minimal funding that I use to purchase broader population samples and push research deeper.

So please, if you value my work, and want to see more of it in the coming year, join the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers. For your museum’s $1,000 fee,* you’ll receive your museum’s custom results from the 2018 survey, including:

• Tracking of museum’s audiences, and their perceptions of your work, over time
• Comparison with peers
• Up to two custom questions for your stakeholders
• Results via spreadsheet and slide deck
• A personal call with me to discuss your results, and contextualize them with broader trends

But just as important, you will help the entire field gain new insights on what museums can do to make a difference in all of our communities. To enroll or find more information, please visit wilkeningconsulting.com.

*$1,000 fee applies to museums that launch their survey in January or February 2018; the fee increases to $3,000 for museums that launch March 1 or later.


The questions for these surveys have been inspired by ongoing conversations within the museum field (who does/does not go to museums, why they do/do not visit, and what that means for communities) and ongoing research in the fields of education and psychology around lifelong learning and intrinsic motivation.

This hierarchy is the fourth in a series I developed out of my broader population work and my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers. Please see my introductory post on why I hate Maslow's hierarchy, and why I am using his model with very strong reservations.

My fourth and final hierarchy looks at outcomes. What are the typical outcomes of individuals who are at the apex (for lack of better word) of the other three hierarchies? Or the typical outcomes of individuals who are not motivated learners and/or may be focusing on self-sufficiency (as described in the hierarchy on "Capacity for Engagement")?

Well, roughly this final hierarchy. Those at the top of the other hierarchies tend to be at the top of this one … with higher income, health, and wellbeing. And those at the bottom of the other hierarchies tend to be at the bottom of this one too.

But there are caveats to start, of course. I am making broad generalizations, which is useful, but individuals can always differ. Someone can be at the apex on one of the hierarchies, but at the bottom of another. Or, someone can be at the bottom of all three of the hierarchies I have already shared, but at the apex of this outcomes one by, for example, the good fortune of birth into a very affluent family.

Additionally, as I have said before, this is not a judgment on anyone's individual worth. One can be at the apex of all of these hierarchies, and still be a horrible person; the opposite is true as well. External factors are so numerous, rooted in class and race, societal pressures and structures (for good and ill), and upbringing. It is wrong to make a judgment on a person doing the best they can, within constraints that may be out of their control.

And I believe museums have an obligation to do all they can to remove those constraints so that more people can attain these positive outcomes, increase their capacity to engage, be intrinsically motivated to learn, and enjoy our world.

​OK, now let's get to what the data says. Looking across three major national studies (two broader population samples and my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers), I see patterns in the data that households with a learning mindset have better outcomes. That is, those who are proactive about learning, whether extrinsically or intrinsically motivated, do better. Most importantly, this holds true when educational attainment is controlled for.

That is, if we are to look at only those who have a college degree, those who do things like volunteer in their community, engage with the broader world, and proactively learn about that world through, for example, museum visitation, are more likely to be employed, have a significantly higher income, and have better long-term health outcomes.

The same is true if we only look at those without a college degree.

It isn't that going to museums creates this outcome. Let's make that clear. Additionally, I'm not, by any means, the first to have these types of findings; other researchers are finding similar patterns, attributing these types of life outcomes to arts engagement and proactive learning (see sources, below).

Instead, it is an affirmation that having a proactive learning mindset matters. It matters for cultural competency. It matters for inter-disciplinary and critical thinking skills. It matters for healthy communities. And it matters for socio-personal relationships. That's likely what makes these individuals more employable (and at a higher wage) as well as giving them more positive health and wellness outcomes.

And we can claim that museums are important tools used by many of those with a proactive learning mindset to get there. That matters.

Our challenge is that we don't have enough evidence to make a compelling case that we contribute more towards these outcomes than, say, Lumosity (which science says isn't a whole lot). If we are going to continue to matter to more individuals in the future, and to make it easier for more people to proactively pursue learning (and improve their life outcomes as well), we need that evidence to back up our assertions. Evidence that can lead to funding to broaden and deepen our impact.

Happily, more of that good work is happening, especially around health and wellness (see below). My work around the value of museums is a starting point for more significant work around learning motivations and the outcomes of a proactive learning mindset. I'll continue that work, and am hopeful others will do so as well since, as researchers, we all bring different skills and our own mindsets to the research table.

You can help as well. By joining my studies and/or those of others (more information below.) Because now more than ever, we need museums to open minds, develop connections, and strengthen communities.


For more on health and wellness outcomes and prosociality from arts engagement (an indicator of a learning mindset), see my reviews of:

Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing
The Arts as a Catalyst for Human Prosociality and Cooperation
The Social Wellbeing of New York City's Neighborhoods: The Contribution of Culture and the Arts

For more on having a learning mindset, see Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol S. Dweck.
*when educational attainment is controlled for



A note about fielding research. I hold dear the idea that research for the field, about the field, should be shared with the field. But that only works when museums work together to make it possible. Since individual museums are needed to field this work, the survey also benefits participating museums on an individual level by providing benchmark data on visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographic questions … all of which can then be tracked over time in the future. Participating museums are also allowed to add 1 - 2 custom questions specific to their needs. 

Which means if you value this research,  want more of it in the coming years, and want to track your own museum's progress over time, please support this work by enrolling your museum in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum Goers. The fee for 2018 is only $1,000 per museum. 



The questions for these surveys have been inspired by ongoing conversations within the museum field (who does/does not go to museums, why they do/do not visit, and what that means for communities) and ongoing research in the fields of education and psychology around lifelong learning and intrinsic motivation.

This hierarchy is the third in a series I developed out of my broader population work and my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers. Please see my introductory post on why I hate Maslow's hierarchy, and why I am using his model with very strong reservations.

My third hierarchy steps back to look at the whole person, and what their life circumstances allows. In some ways, this hierarchy is the closest to Maslow. And this hierarchy is directly inspired by work from the Science of Generosity Initiative at the University of Notre Dame, which was released in the book American Generosity. I explored some of these ideas recently, and I strongly encourage you to see my review of that work on The Curated Bookshelf.

In American Generosity, the researchers discussed four levels of capacity to give:

• Level 1: Self-sufficiency - taking care of self and not being a burden to others.
• Level 2: Relational-parental - taking care of immediate family members so as not to be a burden to others; working to provide opportunities to family members to improve family outcomes (such as working multiple jobs to enable a child to go to college).
• Level 3: Community-religious - helping others in your community through giving locally and through houses of worship (e.g., tithing). Rather concrete giving where the giver sees how it benefits the community; feeling like they are part of community of givers.
• Level 4: Self-actualized giving (they called it professional-lifestyle, but I don't think that is totally accurate) - broader giving that goes beyond personal communities, and can be more abstract. They also include giving to maintain professional and social standing.​​

I've flipped these levels upside-down, where they form a logical reflection of Maslow's hierarchy. After all, if you can't take care of yourself at a basic, fundamental level, how are you supposed to take care of others?

In this case, however, I'm looking at engagement, which is broader than generosity. Indeed, I would argue that generosity is an outgrowth of engagement, because we are generous to those we are intellectually and/or emotionally engaged with. And, like in American Generosity, I'm looking through the lens of capacity. We all have different resources at our disposal, including resources of time, energy, and money. And thus, class is inextricably bound up in capacity. Therefore I want to be very, very careful here to not cast judgment on anyone. My default is that everyone is doing the best they can with the resources available to them, whether at the "self" level or the "broader world" level.

• Self: we take care of ourselves and our basic needs. For some, this takes all of their resources, and requires a very inward focus.
• Family (can also include close friends): we also take care of those we care the most about. When I think of this level, I think of parents scrambling to make sure they have childcare and that they get their kids to school on time. I also think of those parents working overtime to pay for college educations, "sandwiched" adults caring for both children and ailing parents, and grandparents caring for grandchildren. And I think of single parents doing the best they can to make ends meet. With those demands, it is difficult to look up and pay attention to what is going on in our communities, much less the broader world. In terms of museums, this is where we are likely to see some extrinsically-motivated parents who visit museums for their children.
• Community: when someone has capacity to look up and pay attention to what is going on in their community. To be fair, those at self and family levels may do this as well when something directly affects them or their family. But generally, this level means noticing the things that are indirect … or the things that could be made better. A feeling of involvement and connection with community and, like self and family, rather concrete in engagement because of its immediacy. In terms of museums, this is where we see deep community engagement, support of museums as "good" for a community, and perhaps a sense that museums contribute to a community's identity.
• Broader world: extending beyond community to paying attention, and being concerned about, things that are not immediate. It may be thinking more globally, contextualizing world events, and caring about things happening to those one doesn't know.  And in terms of museums, this is where we see individuals valuing museums for bringing that broader world to them, and the outcomes of those experiences for themselves and for others.

All of these levels are based in capacity. That doesn't mean that the affluent have a lock on the "broader world" level (they don't). Nor does it mean that someone at the self or family level is poor (I can think of at least one prominent family that seems to be stuck on the family level, despite having hundreds of millions at their disposal). Additionally, positions are not fixed. An individual who would normally be at the "broader world" level may suddenly find themselves at the "family" level if a family crisis arises. It all depends on capacity to pay attention, and capacity means some mix of financial, time, and energy resources.

Capacity can also, however, be rooted in mindset. If someone is raised in a household that engages with their local community, or the broader world, it is more likely that that individual will be an adult that looks up, pays attention, and engages … regardless of financial resources (that family may be devoting time and energy resources to make that happen; libraries and houses of worship seem to help a lot here). And museums seem to contribute to developing individuals with a broader world mindset, since museum-goers tell me that museums help them broaden perspectives, develop greater understanding of others and of other cultures, and develop empathy. Thus, museums may play a critical role in increasing the capacity of children to grow up into engaged, and contributing, adults. And that takes us to our fourth hierarchy, coming next.



A note about fielding research. I hold dear the idea that research for the field, about the field, should be shared with the field. But that only works when museums work together to make it possible. Since individual museums are needed to field this work, the survey also benefits participating museums on an individual level by providing benchmark data on visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographic questions … all of which can then be tracked over time in the future. Participating museums are also allowed to add 1 - 2 custom questions specific to their needs. 

Which means if you value this research,  want more of it in the coming years, and want to track your own museum's progress over time, please support this work by enrolling your museum in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum Goers. The fee for 2018 is only $1,000 per museum.


The questions for these surveys have been inspired by ongoing conversations within the museum field (who does/does not go to museums, why they do/do not visit, and what that means for communities) and ongoing research in the fields of education and psychology around lifelong learning and intrinsic motivation.

This hierarchy is the second in a series I developed out of my broader population work and my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers. Please see my introductory post on why I hate Maslow's hierarchy, and why I am using his model with very strong reservations.

My second hierarchy looks at the motivations for museum visitation. At the bottom, the two broadest swaths of people: those who do not visit museums at all and those who only visit extremely casually (and probably less than once a year). Combined, this is probably about 2/3 of Americans, as both of the broader population samples I am working with validate.

As we move up the hierarchy,  however, we begin to see motivations for visiting museums.

• Social reasons and/or benefit to children. People visit to spend time with people they care about, both friends and family. To help children's development. I put these together because they are fundamentally about other people, not about the individual responding and their relationship with museum content. And that's OK. Fantastic even. They see museums as good places to step outside of everyday life and connect with someone they care about. Or that museums are helpful places for their children (and also a place for family connection). Those are incredibly valuable things that happen in our museums, every day, and are qualities in shorter supply elsewhere. And they are the most common motivation for visitors, regardless of overall learning mindset; it motivates me as well.
• Interest in specific subject. This one is smaller for two reasons: this motivation is now about the specific content at a museum (and one's response to it), and it is a bit hit-or-miss because it is based on specific interests. I'll explain. Imagine someone is interested in … birds. A museum hosts a bird exhibition, and they visit because they are interested in birds. So it is a response to the specific content being presented. But when that exhibit goes down and a new one on, say, origami, goes up, the visitor may not return unless they are interested in origami. That makes it hit-or-miss. I'm giving very narrow examples and, fortunately, people tend to have broader interests. They like history, or art, or science. Where it differs from the social/children reasons is that, theoretically, any museum can be a backdrop for those social/children reasons, while this one is limited by interest in the subject being presented. I've over-simplified it, however. Reality is more complicated, and often these are intertwined to some degree.
• Gain knowledge/become well-rounded/broaden perspectives. While the previous categories tend to be where extrinsically-motivated museum-goers congregate, as they are not visiting for an inherent love of learning in general, this category is, to be honest, a bit messy. That is because I will see in my data individual respondents who respond to my questions as a typical, extrinsically-motivated person might … but when I ask them to reflect on the value of museums in their life, they will talk about how much museums have taught them and how that knowledge has rounded them out, broadened their perspectives. But then, this isn't that surprising. If you go back to when I shared about proactive vs. reactive learners, it fits right in. These individuals are likely both highly extrinsically and intrinsically motivated, but the extrinsic motivations still have an overall edge on the intrinsic ones. With both being strong, their results are messier and make sense. And that is why specific interest in the subject is also no longer as important. Since they have such high intrinsic motivations to learn, they are more open to a wider variety of topics. They are more omnivorous in their museum choices.
• Intrinsic, love of learning. And here is where we have our museum-goers who are predominantly intrinsically motivated. Only a tiny sliver of the population, but our most avid visitors.

As a general model, this hierarchy works. And for museum-goers, one motivation tends to build on the next. That is, those who are intrinsically motivated also feel museums help them gain knowledge/broaden perspectives, will visit museums that have content they are specifically interested in, and enjoy museums for social reasons. Motivations tend to aggregate.

But please be mindful that what I share below isn't necessarily true for every single person. For example, an individual could fit easily in that "intrinsic, love of learning" category, but always visit museums alone. It may not even occur to them to visit with friends or family. Additionally, motivations can shift from one visit to another. I am highly intrinsically motivated in most of my museum visits, but not all; the umpteenth visit to one of my local museums is because my daughter loves it, not because of my intrinsic motivation (which disappeared around visit four, to be honest).

​And finally, as I have said before, one's place on the hierarchy is not an assessment of character or worth. There are many external reasons for why someone may have higher or lower capacity for learning motivations, both intrinsic and extrinsic. I'll explore that a bit more in my third hierarchy.

​
A note about fielding research. I hold dear the idea that research for the field, about the field, should be shared with the field. But that only works when museums work together to make it possible. Since individual museums are needed to field this work, the survey also benefits participating museums on an individual level by providing benchmark data on visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographic questions … all of which can then be tracked over time in the future. Participating museums are also allowed to add 1 - 2 custom questions specific to their needs. 
​
Which means if you value this research,  want more of it in the coming years, and want to track your own museum's progress over time, please support this work by enrolling your museum in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum Goers. The fee for 2018 is only $1,000 per museum. 

The questions for these surveys have been inspired by ongoing conversations within the museum field (who does/does not go to museums, why they do/do not visit, and what that means for communities) and ongoing research in the fields of education and psychology around lifelong learning and intrinsic motivation.

One of the values I hold dear is that research conducted in our field should benefit the field. That's why I freely share the results of my research, particularly here, via The Data Museum.

We need to understand how museums improve lives. Help with human endeavors. Inspire and spark curiosity. Promote family connections in a world that is full of distractions. Contribute to our health and wellness. Help us make meaning in a complex world.

We need to do a better job of connecting museum experiences to these outcomes, making a case that not only are museums engaging, but they are critical to the well-being of all of as as individuals, communities, and a society.  

This is the work that I do. One sample at a time. 

But I need YOUR help to continue this critical research. I can only field this work when museums join together to provide not only a source for samples, but also minimal funding that I use to purchase broader population samples and push research deeper. 

So please, if you value my work, and want to see more of it in the coming year, join the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers.

For your museum's $1,000 fee,* you'll receive your museum's custom results from the 2018 survey, including:

• Tracking of museum's audiences, and their perceptions of your work, over time
• Comparison with peers
• Up to two custom questions for your stakeholders
• Results via spreadsheet and slide deck
• A personal call with me to discuss your results, and contextualize them with broader trends

But just as important, you will help the entire field gain new insights on what museums can do to make a difference in all of our communities. 

To enroll, simply fill out this short enrollment form. 

For more information, please see this informational PDF, or get in touch with me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com.
 
 
Thank you.
 
 
*$1,000 fee applies to museums that launch their survey in January or February 2018; the fee increases to $3,000 for museums that launch March 1 or later.

This is the first hierarchy in a series I developed out of my broader population work and my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers. Please see my introductory post on why I hate Maslow's hierarchy, and why I am using his model with very strong reservations.

To begin laying out the four hierarchies I have devised, I am starting with overall learning motivations (which affects museum-going, but isn't about museums necessarily).

To be honest, this first hierarchy, inspired by Maslow, is pretty straightforward. Especially since I have laid out these categories before, in a post on intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for learning. 

​

• Intrinsically motivated - active learners. There are our most avid, lifelong museum-goers. They visit museums as one of many things they do to engage their brains and emotions (and, to be fair, some in this category actually don't visit museums much). They have a high need for cognition. And they do it out of sheer enjoyment (which doesn't preclude other outcomes, such as higher incomes, better employment, etc.).
• Extrinsically motivated - active learners. Also tend to be avid museum-goers, but only when museums meet their needs. Parenthood is a prime example (i.e., they visit museums because it is good for their children). They have a learning mindset like those that are intrinsically motivated do, but primarily as a means to an end towards other goals, such as formal educational attainment, better employment prospects, etc. This doesn't mean there is no intrinsic motivation, but that extrinsic motivations outweigh intrinsic ones … often for good reason.
• Extrinsically motivated - reactive learners. This group has two categories:
  • For many of these individuals, there is no learning mindset and they have a low need for cognition. That is, they attend school as long as necessary, but no longer. Same thing with workplace training. In survey work, they are likely to say that learning or education is important, but their actions don't bear this out (and they rarely, if ever, visit museums). Since they don't actively seek out learning, for themselves or their children, we tend to see lower lifetime outcomes from these individuals.
  • There are some individuals in this group who do value learning, but they don't have the time, energy, and/or financial resources to be active about it. In this case, it is a matter of capacity. If they had time, energy, and/or financial resources, they would be in the active category (either extrinsically or intrinsically motivated). See my essay about educational tailwinds for more.
• The amotivational. There probably are a few people out there who would say learning isn't important, and avoid it to such a degree they are not even reactive learners. Complete non-participants. Assuming they exist, they probably don't show up in surveys or research projects much, if at all.

Much of this hierarchy is based on capacity. That is, what are the external forces at play that can constrain learning? Especially discretionary learning (that is, not K-12 schooling or workplace training). Being an active learner takes time, energy, and financial resources to pursue. Not everyone has that.

But intrinsic motivation, as I've shared before, can come from a place of privilege. A place of being able to assume that the extrinsically-motivated payoffs of job, solid income, etc., will be there, thus allowing the intrinsic motivation to take precedent. This doesn't suggest that being affluent means having an intrinsic motivation, but if one is intrinsically motivated, it helps to be affluent enough to support that motivation.

I am loathe to judge anyone based on their learning motivation (which is one reason I don't like the hierarchical nature of Maslow, as it implies judgment). One's individual motivation to learn appears to be wrapped up in capacity, which is built on so many external, societal factors, that I've come to the idea that most of us are simply doing the best we can. Yes, I would love for that intrinsically motivated segment of the population to grow. We need it to grow for many reasons (which the other hierarchies I share will inform), and I believe museums play a significant role in growing it. But not in a vacuum. Society needs more than that, and individuals and families deserve those opportunities to grow.



A note about fielding research. I hold dear the idea that research for the field, about the field, should be shared with the field. But that only works when museums work together to make it possible. Since individual museums are needed to field this work, the survey also benefits participating museums on an individual level by providing benchmark data on visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographic questions … all of which can then be tracked over time in the future. Participating museums are also allowed to add 1 - 2 custom questions specific to their needs. 

Which means if you value this research,  want more of it in the coming years, and want to track your own museum's progress over time, please support this work by enrolling your museum in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum Goers. The fee for 2018 is only $1,000 per museum. 


The questions for these surveys have been inspired by ongoing conversations within the museum field (who does/does not go to museums, why they do/do not visit, and what that means for communities) and ongoing research in the fields of education and psychology around lifelong learning and intrinsic motivation.

I have a love-hate relationship with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You know, that psychological theory shaped like a pyramid.

It isn't that I think it is wrong, but more the suggestion that those at the top (self-actualization) could be construed as better than those at the bottom (physiological). The sheer placement suggests this … that it could be a character assessment.

I really hate this about Maslow. Especially since being lower on the hierarchy is often a matter of external forces, and not character at all.

So it is with mixed feelings that I suddenly deploy Maslow's hierarchy. A lot. I do so because it is well-understood by museum professionals, easy to remember, and it makes sense in what I have to share. And because every other graphic I came up with was either worse or misleading.

Please, however, don't take it as judgmental of any part of the population. Instead, it is largely an assessment of capacity, and the many external factors affecting that. If I feel the need to be judgmental, I'll be crystal clear about it.

That being said, what am I up to?

Over the past few months, I've shared a great deal of research about museum-goers and the broader population. This work has been rooted in a broader population study I fielded in the fall of 2016, the 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, and the work I did with AAM and their Museums and America 2017 sampling (forthcoming). My interpretation of all of this work was also influenced by research from the University of Notre Dame's Science of Generosity Initiative, which considered generosity and engagement through a lens of capacity, which I think is sensitive and highly appropriate (see my review of their book, American Generosity).

In my work, I've explored different segments of the population, and I've looked at the population through the lens of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of learning. The correlations I see among those motivations, museum-going, civic engagement, political engagement and persuasion, and life outcomes are, overall, pretty clear. Compelling. And while I am loathe to call my work definitive (far from it), there is enough here for me to lay out these broad conclusions and seek to understand the why behind them.  Because the more I look, the more complexity I see. By educational attainment. By age. By race and ethnicity. And within every category as well.

Inspired by the researchers at Notre Dame, I'm looking at all of this through a capacity lens. My hope is that it makes me more sensitive and realistic about my findings, and respectful of individuals, their mindsets, and their actions.

To illustrate my broad findings, I've developed four new versions of Maslow's hierarchy, each through a different lens of consideration.

• Motivations around learning (intrinsic, extrinsic)
• Engagement with community, broader world
• Purpose of museum visitation (a narrower lens)
• Life outcomes

What I do like about this method is that, by placing my new hierarchies side-by-side, it is also possible to get a general read on the US population. Most people who are at the apex of one of my hierarchies are likely to be at the apex of the others … but not always. Consider them new rules-of-thumb, but with many exceptions and far more testing and research to verify.

I'll be illustrating and discussing each new version over the next few weeks.



A note about fielding research. I hold dear the idea that research for the field, about the field, should be shared with the field. But that only works when museums work together to make it possible. Since individual museums are needed to field this work, the survey also benefits participating museums on an individual level by providing benchmark data on visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographic questions … all of which can then be tracked over time in the future. Participating museums are also allowed to add 1 - 2 custom questions specific to their needs. 

Which means if you value this research,  want more of it in the coming years, and want to track your own museum's progress over time, please support this work by enrolling your museum in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum Goers. The fee for 2018 is only $1,000 per museum. 


The questions for these surveys have been inspired by ongoing conversations within the museum field (who does/does not go to museums, why they do/do not visit, and what that means for communities) and ongoing research in the fields of education and psychology around lifelong learning and intrinsic motivation.

Several months ago, the book American Generosity completely changed how I thought about how and why people engage with their world. In particular, they described people's generosity (which includes civic engagement) in terms of capacity. Everyone has different capacities to engage, and those capacities are rooted in socio-economic status, upbringing, childhood experiences, peer groups, and other factors.

It wasn't judgmental. It could have been. They could have said "someone who doesn't even give a dollar to charity is a jerk." But they didn't automatically make that assumption. Instead, through the lens of capacity, they found much more nuance, and by not being judgmental, it was easier to see how deeper change can be affected.

I'm going to try and do likewise. Because I think the capacity approach is crucial not only to generosity, but to civic engagement and to lifelong learning. That matters, and deeply, to museums.

(You'll see me refer to American Generosity, based on work done by the Science of Generosity Initiative at the University of Notre Dame, a few times as I continue to share research. I strongly encourage you to read my review of it on The Curated Bookshelf. Then you can decide if you want to dig through the book itself.)

Which brings me to the disengaged. In my broader population work last fall, I kept looking at this group of people.

Because, first of all, they are not generally museum-goers. As a field, we talk constantly about broadening our audiences across different demographic and socio-economic dimensions. These are those individuals.

But it isn't that it is a world of either people who visit museum or those who don't. It is much bigger than that.

The disengaged are far less civically engaged. They feel less connected to their communities. Additionally, they have fewer concerns about, less interest in, and do far fewer things in their communities.

And when it comes to politics, they are more likely to say they don't care about politics than to identify themselves anywhere on the political spectrum.

In American Generosity, when describing individuals who fit into this category of disengagement, they wrote about them, well, generously. They described individuals focused on providing for themselves and their families at the basic level of food, shelter, clothing, medicine. They described individuals with their heads down, working multiple jobs to provide for their families, or to save for their children's educations. And they described people who came from backgrounds of want, who psychologically need to feel any future rainy days are taken care of.

In those descriptions, I could see why museums don't fit in. Or even community engagement or political engagement. It is a very inward focus, and one most of us have. I know I am focused on providing for my family, making sure college educations will be paid for, and that a rainy day doesn't set us back. You probably are as well.

But I have resources. Or, privilege. I'm well-educated, my spouse is well-educated, and that inward focus doesn't take 100% of my attention. I have capacity. Capacity to look up and see what is, first, going on in the world directly around me (my community), and then the world more broadly. Capacity to engage with both. And capacity to continue to educate myself about both, meaning time to read books, visit museums, and be generous to others in need. To my utmost capacity.

You probably do too. We're peers. And we are in that biggest bubble in the illustration below from American Generosity (I don't like their term "professional;" I'd replace that with engagement with broader world). That makes us privileged, and it is incumbent on us to not only acknowledge that, but to be more understanding of those who have less capacity than we have.

Because where this bubble chart is actually misleading is the size of the bubbles. In reality, it is more like a Maslow's hierarchy, and the individuals at the apex (which I would call "broader world - lifestyle generosity") are a small sliver of the population, while far more people fall in those other bubbles/lower in the hierarchy.

How many? Good question.

A lot. In my 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, virtually all respondents are engaged with their communities to some degree. But most people who are focused 100% on self or familial (or friend) sufficiency are not museum-goers. Museum-goers, it turns out, are outliers.

But a fair number of the disengaged do show up in my broader population work. And here it becomes really complicated. Bear with me, and let's walk through making an estimate about the population.

The typical markers of disengagement are, in my work, feeling "not very" connected to a community and/or not caring about politics. Those folks, overwhelmingly, are disengaged individuals who do little in their community and are unlikely to visit museums (among other markers). They comprise 42% of my broader population sample, but I want to be conservative. Let's knock it down a bit.

To 30% of my sample.

But when I look at individuals who say they are only "somewhat" connected to their community, their response patterns to questions about their community and museum engagement are very similar to the disengaged. They comprise 30% of my sample, but not all are disengaged. I'll be conservative and say half are.

So 30% + 15% = 45%

And then there are the people who feel very connected to their communities by virtue of birth. Turns out, feeling connected in this way does not necessarily mean engagement. About half are "rooted in place" by choice, and are engaged and active citizens (and more likely to be museum-goers). But about half are "tied to place" by default, and their other responses indicate that they are, you got it, disengaged.  15% of my sample were very connected by birth; the half that are "tied to place" then comprise 7.5%. Let's be conservative again and say 5%.

So 45% + 5% = 50%

Scary number. But there's more. Survey bias. If you go back and read my introduction to the 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, you'll read about the blind spot that every broader population sample has. A large segment of the population that surveys never reach in the first place. To be conservative, let's say that 30% of the population never see these surveys at all (and never seeing surveys in the first place is a sure-fire sign of disengagement).

So, my 50% above is of that 70% of the population represented in broader population surveys. 50% of that 70% is 35%.

Which means 35% sampled + 30% never sampled = 65%

Two-thirds of the population isn't that engaged with their communities or the broader world.

Seem high? Maybe. But remember, disengagement doesn't mean they never vote (many do, especially in presidential elections). Yet this explains the low levels of voting in local elections, why it is always the same people that volunteer and run local organizations, and why so few Americans have visited a museum in the past year.

This doesn't mean that 65% of Americans are never generous, never paying attention to their communities, or that they don't care, however. My research indicates significantly lower levels of engagement, but not necessarily zero engagement. Additionally, my handful of surveys, like every other survey in the world, are imperfect. My surveys are not capturing neighborhood dynamics. Or engagement with informal neighborhood networks. Or desires for more involvement. They also don't capture capacity to engage that would increase dramatically if economic necessities were taken care of. That's a lot more nuance than a few surveys can tell us about. Yet you have to start somewhere.

What about museums? Does this mean that the broadest audience we can hope for is 35% of the population? Because if that's true, we've pretty much tapped that out in terms of casual + regular visitation.

Actually, I think to the contrary. It means there is a huge potential for delivering impact in truly meaningful ways. And it all has to do with motivation.

The vast majority of that two-thirds of the disengaged population (as well as a fair number of the engaged), are extrinsically-motivated learners. Yet we know from my work about the value of museums that museums can make a difference in lives, and deliver meaningful impact. Museums can do so in ways that meet the explicit needs of the extrinsically motivated.

We're not going to convince them by talking about the joy of discovery or unleashing creativity, however. We have to be more pragmatic about it and deliver content that meets their needs, where they are, with outcomes that matter to them. Their kids will do better in school. This will help them land a better job. And so on. In no way does that diminish our missions because this pragmatic approach does not preclude the joy of discovery or the unleashing of creativity. We can do both. In fact, I'm not sure anyone else can do both as effectively.


And, finally, a word about jerks.

While I appreciate the nuance and sensitivity around thinking about engagement through a capacity lens, let's be honest. There are some people who are just jerks that don't care about others. They can have billions of dollars, power, and influence. And they can be stuck in the self or familial sufficiency bubbles. Not because they lack capacity but because they are jerks.

I'm making the assumption that these individuals are outliers, and are not at all typical. The exceptions that prove the rule. I hope you do likewise. But that doesn't mean it isn't prudent to be aware of them and, when necessary, resist them.

Or, even better, reach them in meaningful, even transformative ways. I'm optimistic.




A note about fielding research. I hold dear the idea that research for the field, about the field, should be shared with the field. But that only works when museums work together to make it possible. Since individual museums are needed to field this work, the survey also benefits participating museums on an individual level by providing benchmark data on visitation rates, motivations, attitudes and preferences, and demographic questions … all of which can then be tracked over time in the future. Participating museums are also allowed to add 1 - 2 custom questions specific to their needs. 

Which means if you value this research,  want more of it in the coming years, and want to track your own museum's progress over time, please support this work by enrolling your museum in the 2018 Annual Survey of Museum Goers. The fee for 2018 is only $1,000 per museum. 



The questions for these surveys have been inspired by ongoing conversations within the museum field (who does/does not go to museums, why they do/do not visit, and what that means for communities) and ongoing research in the fields of education and psychology around lifelong learning and intrinsic motivation.