Literature Review: Learning Theory and Museums

As a multidisciplinary project, the literature supporting the Archaeology Activity Guide falls into several areas: archaeology and anthropology, stewardship of cultural resources, learning theory in informal learning situations, and what might be described as museum education theory and practice. Consideration of learning theory and museum education issues provides the broad theoretical context for development of the activity guide. An examination of archaeological principles and cultural resource stewardship issues provides specific content for the activities.

Museum Education

Education has long been a hallmark of the American museum. The principle of gallery instruction was first developed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in the early part of this century. Museum pioneers emphasized the role museums could play in learning, but thought of it in different terms than educators do today. Education meant formal programs, patterned after the classroom Bloom & Mintz, 1990/1992; Burcaw, 1983; Commission on Museums for a New Century, 1984.

Even though the practice of museum education has expanded beyond mimicking the formal presentations of the classroom, there is an absence of consensus on the nature of museum learning. There is no universally accepted philosophical framework of how learning takes place in the museum environment that guides development of museum education policy Caston, 1989; Commission on Museums for a New Century, 1984. Historically, discussion has focused on methods, materials, and activities, rather than exploring issues that define learning in a museum context Commission on Museums, 1984. This lack of consensus contributes to confusion over the role of learning in the museum, and hampers the museum connecting effectively with the rest of the informal and formal education systems Slafer, 1985/1992.

Education is recognized as a lifelong process that need not take place in a formal structure or culminate in a degree or certificate Commission on Museums, 1984. Formal and informal learning situations differ in a number of ways. A key difference is in the instructional stimuli. Formal education relies largely on verbal information, while the museum is weighted toward visual information, and is increasingly moving toward multi-sensory stimuli. The museum environment is more dynamic than the classroom setting. The visitor is encouraged to explore and gain exposure to a variety of instructional stimuli. Learning in the classroom is teacher-paced with importance placed on achievement. In the museum, the visitor normally controls the pace of discovery, and achievement is personal and self-motivated. Reward and punishment strategies used in schools are altered in the museum so that the visitor is encouraged by intrinsic rewards of fun and casual activities Bitgood, 1988. David Harte notes that the attitude towards learning is much more positive as a result Koester, 1993.

Learning in the museum is an active process bearing the "stamps of the unique personal, social, and physical context" Falk & Dierking, 1992, p. 101.¹ Social interaction becomes an important component in informal settings, and learning is socially or familially mediated Bitgood, 1988. The social context is particularly important to this project. The activities used as orientation to the museum, and the museum experience itself, occur within the highly social setting of a classroom and school tour.

Research on interactive science exhibits suggests that the strength of the museum visit lies in the affective rather than cognitive domain Hooper-Greenhill, 1991. That is, museums may be better suited to changing general attitudes, rather than instilling specific factual messages.

The experience of the visit should enable the making of imaginative and emotional links to artifacts, specimens, historic sites and environments. The affective links will only be successful if they relate to the world of the specific child or adult…A basic principle is to work from the knowledge and life experience of the audience, rather than the knowledge or life experience of the museum teacher. Hooper-Greenhill, 1991, p. 116

Relating the exhibit to the visitor's life experience is a recurring theme in the literature of museum exhibition and education.

Providing Context through Exhibits

The museum's primary method of communication is the exhibit. It is a medium so powerful that any consideration of museum education must include the exhibit. The communication of a point of view is an inevitable component of an exhibition Commission on Museums, 1984. Interpretation of the museum's collection is accomplished both through the exhibit, and its associated programs.

…exhibits impart not facts, but interpretations… For museums to be effective, they must communicate successfully, and successful communication often requires showing what a thing has to do with you, your life, your world. Roberts, 1992, pp. 156–57

Objects act as the catalyst for museum education. Education materials and programs developed for the museum should use the objects and exhibits as context.

Objects and ideas are interwoven in an open process of communication that blends study and exploration, seeing and thinking, and, in many instances, touching. Commission on Museums, 1984, p. 59

The key to any meaningful learning experience is engagement. What is unique about museums is that they have great potential to engage visitors in perceiving, questioning, computing, and hypothesizing about their own experience in relationship to interesting objects, artifacts, and works of art, as well as representations of culture, history, natural history…Wolfe, 1992, p. 135

Russell Nye (1981) noted that artifact based learning gives us a deeper level of understanding about ourselves and the world around us.

An artifact is the product of a chain of concepts: a need, an idea, a plan, a product. Once it is made, it will reflect or influence the behavior of those who made it and those who will use it. (p. 8)

Thus, learning in the museum is studying the actual arrowheads, hand-crafted by native Americans thousands of years ago, or contemporary fabrics made by people living on the other side of the world or down the street. From this focus on objects, museum learning can be expanded to include finding out about something by watching it happen, or understanding by exploring, experiencing, or creating Commission on Museums, 1984.

Consideration of the expansion of museum learning from passive observation to active participation highlights two seemingly divergent approaches to the presentation of objects in museums. One is a content-centered approach emphasizing facts and principles. The other is a visitor-centered approach emphasizing the visitor's experience. Materials used in museum education have been typically developed from existing exhibit materials and research. Facts, ideas, and conclusions are taught through "vocabulary, thinking processes, and resources selected because we are very familiar and comfortable with them" O'Connell, 1992, p. 254. O'Connell goes on to suggest that this approach ignores whatever form the exhibit's themes may already have in the visitor's mind, and that a way to synthesize the fact-based and experiential approaches needs to be found.

Falk and Dierking (1992) propose a model that attempts to take into account the complex nature of the museum visitor's experience-one that includes the personal and social context of the visitor as well as the physical context of the institution. Of particular interest to this study, is the awareness that the "visitor's pre-visit agenda will strongly influence museum behavior and learning" (p. 152).

Stephen Bitgood's (1995) research confirms that visitors tend to have a more satisfying experience and acquire more knowledge when given information about what to expect and where to go. He has found, through observation and testing, that advance organizers that give pre-knowledge of theme and content are preferred by visitors and will usually facilitate understanding of the messages of the exhibit.² A considerable body of research indicates that providing pre-trip orientation about the material to be covered during the museum visit yields improved learning about the content of the visit Barnes & Clawson, 1981; Gennaro, 1981; Koran & Koran, 1979; Novak, 1976; Pizzini & Gross, 1978.

When introducing children into the museum context, fundamental issues in addition to advanced organizers and way-finding are raised. "Children have only the vaguest ideas about how an object gets into a museum and why it is there and even what a museum is" Jensen, 1994, p. 269. These issues must be addressed in preparing children for a museum visit.

A Possible Paradigm: Learning Theory and Museum Education

Nina Jensen (1994) points out that learning is the result of the conflict between one's conception of reality and new encounters with reality. Ideas about the world are restructured as new information is received. This dynamic process is fundamental to what happens in museums. "Because the experience of adults in museums is qualitatively different than those of children, it is often difficult for adults to understand the museum visit from the perspective of the child" (p. 269). A brief review of child development and learning theory will lead us to the theoretical paradigm to be used in this study, and one that is appropriate to museum education in general. A central theme is that of the need for a variety of stimuli in cognitive development. Another common note is the use of play-like activities in learning.

Jean Piaget (1962) noted that children learn and think differently at different ages. Sensory experiences, haptic (hands-on) and visual stimuli involving personal experiences, are most important to young children. School-age children, between seven and eleven, process information in more concrete, specific terms, and adolescents begin to develop the cognitive ability to analyze relationships between facts and objects, and to comprehend abstract concepts. New methods of processing information do not supersede old as the child develops. New methods build upon, and enhance the old.

Piaget theorized that children learn about the world through play: practice play, symbolic play, and games play. Play may take the form of improvisation or structured game-like activities. In either case, thinking and problems solving skills are developed. Cognitive growth occurs through active learning Piaget, 1962.

Jerome Bruner (1968) suggested that children require a variety of stimuli for appropriate cognitive growth. Learning occurs more naturally when information is introduced through play-like activities.

Continuing with this theme, Viktor Lowenfeld (1970) described two modes of individual learning: haptic and visual. Haptic learners learn best from a hands-on approach supplementing verbal and written exercises. They also respond well to physical experiences involving the senses of taste, touch, and smell. Visual learners are observers, who also acquire knowledge through discussion, experimentation and hands-on activities.

Howard Gardner (1983, 1991, 1993) extends these notions of the importance of multiple stimuli and modes of learning with his theory of multiple intelligences: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, and personal (inter- and intra-). Linguistic intelligence encompasses problem solving skills centering on language. Logical-mathematical intelligence purportedly cuts across domains and encompasses logical and intuitive processes. Linguistic and logical-mathematical skills are those tested in standard IQ tests. Musical intelligence deals with the perception and production of music. Spatial problem solving is found in navigation, map-reading, and the visual arts. Interpersonal intelligence relates to skills used in dealing with others, while intrapersonal intelligence addresses understanding of the self. The essential point is that people have various problems solving skills developed to different degrees and in different combinations. An effective teaching strategy is one that takes this into account.

Gardner views the intelligences as not being discrete entities or parallel categories, but are, instead, best viewed as processes and abilities "continuous with one another" (1993, p. 70). It should be noted that Gardner does not refer to them as forms of learning, but rather, as intellectual competencies that entail a set of problem solving skills. "Related to, but separate from, the intelligences involved are the actual ways of learning exploited in one or another setting" (1993, p. 334). Learning may be unmediated, observational, and take place outside the context in which a particular skill is normally practiced.

There are, according to Gardner (1993), at least five ways that any concept can be approached, that map roughly onto the multiple intelligences. Use of these entry points allows the teacher to introduce new material in ways that can be easily grasped by students.

It should be evident that the use of multiple entry points can be a powerful means of dealing with student misconceptions, biases, and stereotypes. So long as one takes only a single perspective or tack on a concept or problem, it is virtually certain that students will understand that concept only in the most limited and rigid fashion. Conversely, the adoption of a family of stances toward a phenomenon encourages the student to come to know the phenomenon in more than one way. (p. 204)

The narrational (linguistic intelligence) entry point presents a story or narrative about the concept under consideration. Using the logical-quantitative (mathematical-logical intelligence) entry point invokes numerical considerations or deductive reasoning. A foundational entry point examines philosophy and terminology, and combines linguistic, with inter-personal and intra-personal intelligences. The aesthetic approach enters the realm of art and can involve linguistic, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and musical intelligences. The experiential approach (bodily-kinesthetic intelligence) deals directly with the materials that convey or embody the concept Gardner, 1993.

As was noted previously, affective (imaginative and emotional) links to artifacts will only be successful if they relate to the world of the specific child or adult. Museum education can provide experiences that broaden the visitor's world so that links can be more readily made. Museums need to recognize that individuals differ widely in their approaches to understanding and problem solving. For instance, someone with highly developed spatial intelligence will not respond to verbally based materials, just as a person with high verbal skills will not get as much from a visually intensive form of interpretation. Ideally, exhibits, and educational programs and materials, will be structured to provide multiple entry points to the topic through a synthesis of content-centered exhibition and experientially oriented educational programming.

Integrating Exhibition and Education

The museum's learning environment is not the sole responsibility of the Education Department. The curator, exhibit designer, and educator bring important, although often divergent, perspectives to the task of creating a complete learning experience for the museum visitor. Conflict may arise over an assumed dichotomy between 'object-oriented' and ' learner-oriented' staff. Problems may arise when the three areas do not collaborate in developing clear objectives for the exhibit, or deciding how the effectiveness of the work is to be assessed. Museum professionals debate the relative importance of the aesthetic or historical organization of the exhibit concepts to the visitor's learning experience Pitman-Gelles, 1985.

In recent years, museums using a team approach to exhibition development have experienced success. Designers, educators, and sometimes project managers, join with the curator in creating exhibits. Often, the museum's educator functions as an expert on, or an advocate for the audience Crew, 1992; Pierce, 1992. A cautionary note is sounded in the American Association of Museum's report, Excellence and Equity (1992):

…while the case for education has been made and strengthened, the term too often continues to connote specific programs for school children rather than an institution-wide commitment to sharing knowledge with the public… (p. 11).

A team approach to exhibit development is being implemented at the University of Oregon Museum of Natural History. The museum educator and exhibit designer are seen as having equally important roles, and cooperate on evaluation of projects. Consideration of the educational nature of the exhibit, and educational programs and materials associated with the exhibit, are built in to the development process Museum of Natural History, 1995.

Museums' Role in the Teaching of Archaeology

Ethnographic and natural history museums play a key role in presentation of archaeology to the public. Most often, this takes the form of the display of artifacts recovered by excavation. Occasional demonstrations of flintnapping techniques, a photo or two from an excavation site, or display of a carbon-14 dating report delineate the extent to which many museums typically acknowledge the process behind their objects.

Studying objects in museums tends to cause the visitor to ask why the object is in the museum in the first place. This leads to questions about what curators and conservators do, and in archaeologically oriented exhibits, questions about the role of the archaeologist in locating and interpreting objects. Answering these questions is an essential part of museum education, and one which teachers have difficulty dealing with, unaided Hopper-Greenhill, 1991.

Use of archaeology in the classroom has appeal for educators. Its interdisciplinary nature allows exploration of many subjects: geology, biology, chemistry, paleontology, osteology, history, geography, anthropology, mathematics, reading, writing, oral presentation, art, and the relationships among these topics. It is compatible with hands-on activities, and helps to develop critical thinking skills and scientific reasoning Smith, 1991.

A cautionary note is sounded by Zimmerman, Dasovich, Engstrom, and Bradley (1994). Museum educators and archaeologists may often have an agenda different from those of the classroom teacher.

Teachers have different goals…from entertaining students to maintaining discipline, from teaching critical thinking or mathematical kills to teaching factual content in subject areas…Teachers do see the potential for co-curricular and other approaches to education. But they have a difficulty translating our agendas to theirs. (p. 370)

1. So as not to misrepresent their position, it must be noted that Falk and Dierking (1992) decry any supposed differences between formal and informal learning. They contend that "learning is learning" (p. 99) where ever and however it occurs, and is influenced by the social, physical and personal contexts. "The terms ' formal' and 'informal' have little predictive value in relation to learning" (p 99).

2. Advance organizers communicating the intent of an exhibit do not necessarily inhibit the visitor's free exploration of the exhibit. Anecdotal evidence from museum evaluators suggests that the museum visitor frequently discovers meanings other than that intended by the exhibit's creators. Advance organizers can provide context for the visitor without interfering in their arrival at their own interpretation. Some museum professionals suggest that the visitor will arrive at their own interpretation regardless of the museum's efforts to impart a particular message.