Research Release: Overview of the 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers

As a field, we have all been wrestling with some big questions. Big questions that strike at the heart of what museums do, how we do it, why we do it, and whether we do it more (or less) effectively than others.

To tackle these questions requires research, which is where I come in.

This winter, 25 museums partnered with me to field the 2017 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers. You have seen a couple of posts rooted in that research already (see category "2017 Annual Survey"), but this post is my real kickoff piece, outlining what my research is, what has fed into it, and what is to come.

What is it: A survey of museum-goers, not casual visitors or the broader public (see "bonus research," below, for more on those population segments). There were 6,013 respondents, with 56% coming from art and history museums, and 44% from children's museums and science centers.  This breakdown was close to ideal, as it is a relatively even balance of two very different groups of visitors with very different motivations for visiting.

Research goals: In particular, the survey focused on the following themes:

• Individual attitudes towards learning. In particular, examining how whether one has an intrinsic motivation around learning affects museum visitation and engagement, versus having predominantly extrinsic motivations around learning.
• Community connection and challenges. Does an individual's perceived connection with their community correlate in any way with museum engagement? Is the correlation mutually supporting (that is, mutual causation)? Why or why not?
• Philanthropy and museums.
• Initial articulation of value of museums. Can museum-goers put into words why museums matter to them? If so, what do they say? And, crucially, does having an intrinsic or extrinsic motivation around learning make a difference? (Spoiler alert: it does.)
• Benchmarking current audiences of museum participants. Helping the individual museums that participated by making a current assessment of their museum's audience, who that primary audience is, and the attitudes and preferences of that primary audience. (See below for how you can do likewise in 2018.)

Bonus research: In addition to my work with museum-goers, I have also fielded broader population samples, which permits me to assess how museum-goers are like the broader population … and not. These surveys allow contextualization and, in some cases, stiff reality checks. You'll see these results brought in a fair amount, especially when it comes to estimating the size of the population that visits museums, and how much individuals engage with their communities.

Topics to expect:

• The life cycle of community engagement
• A closer look at disengaged segments of the population (turns out, they are disengaged from their communities and museums)
• Intrinsic motivations around learning and museum engagement, focusing on:
  • Young adults
  • Older adults
• The Parent Bubble -  extrinsic motivations around learning:
  • Engagement levels
  • Attrition rates
  • Articulation of value (or, why touting "museums open minds" may not be broadening your audience)
  • And a complicated discussion of socio-economic status, race, and ethnicity
• Museum value and impact
  • The learning mindset and outcomes
  • Community learning ecosystems
  • Why museums matter to museum-goers (initial look)
• A slew of mini-topic posts, including:
  • Who the crankiest museum visitor is
  • An assessment of museum contributions to a community's quality of life
  • Why no one ever said "hey, let's go to the museum, they have a great smartphone app"
• New questions rooted in this research

And now, three additional notes:

• Survey bias: All surveys have some degree of survey bias (except, perhaps, the US Census Bureau). Blind spots. No survey is perfect. The Annual Survey of Museum-Goers represents only a small sliver of the US population: those that visit museums on a regular basis. It does not represent casual visitors or non-visitors. My broader population samples are far better for assessing the broader population, but they too have a blind spot. That is, there is a large segment of the population that is extremely difficult to survey. Surveys simply never reach them. And while I could weight my sample for, say, income or education (since low-income, low-education households tend to be under-represented even in broader-population samples), that will only tell me what those individuals who the survey reached thought. Having a survey reach you, and then responding to it, is an indicator of broader engagement with the world, and those that are never surveyed may not be as engaged with the world, and thus have different behaviors and attitudes. Thus, when looking at results from any survey, including mine, take into consideration how large that blind spot is, and be cautious about assuming the results are truly representative of the broader population.

 

• Future Annual Surveys: 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. If a least 40 museums participate, it costs only $1,000 per museum.

 

• Sources of lines of inquiry: The questions for this survey were inspired by a number of sources. Of course, we all want to know why people visit (or not), what types of museum experiences have been most meaningful, and how museums have made a difference in individual lives. We want to know how to do community engagement better, and what that means for our communities. These questions have been at the forefront of our field for years, as any of you can attest. But as I undertake what I call "Knowledge Curation" for the field, I also see these themes coming from other disciplines and researchers. The Pew Research Center's work on community connection, as well as the publication Place Attachment. Mark Stern and Susan Seifert's work on culture, community ecosystems, and social wellbeing. Shifts in philanthropy, as reported by the Chronicle of Philanthropy and other organizations. New work coming out of the fields of psychology and education. My research questions do not come out of a vacuum of my own brain, but are rooted in your questions and all of these new (and some not so new) research studies (which I do, in my notes, keep track of and how they inform my questions). All I've done is taken your questions, or made connections from other fields to this one, and then turned around and actually asked those questions to the public of museum-goers and non-visitors. (And yes, "all" is an understatement.)

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