How Museums Engage Visitors’ Self-Efficacy

Abstract

Museums have played an educational role for over two centuries. In the last 50+ years, science centres have become particularly captivating spaces for the public to physically engage with the natural world and other learning opportunities. What is not clear is if this experience is felt as fulsomely by those with low inquiry self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the belief in one’s abilities to be successful at a particular task (Bandura, 1977). If visitors have low inquiry self-efficacy, then, for example, they may not see any purpose in applying effort to engaging with exhibits at the museum. This study attempts to understand museum visitor experiences by collecting surveys from 100 participants and interview data from 15 participants, and uses this data to characterize the AstraZeneca Human Edge exhibits at the Ontario Science Centre. This study also explores why certain exhibits elicit engagement, and tries to identify if those exhibits and features that cause low inquiry self-efficacy visitors to engage are consistent with hospitality, an ethic of welcoming all visitors, without expectation or condition of who they should be (Derrida, 2005). The research results show that: 1) the length of a visit may vary with the visitor’s inquiry self-efficacy; 2) the types of exhibits visitors interact with, and why they choose those exhibits, varies with the visitor’s inquiry self-efficacy; and 3) by considering and interpreting these differences through a conceptual lens of hospitality, I provide suggestions for how exhibit design and arrangement fosters engagement from all visitors, including low inquiry self-efficacy visitors. Better exhibit design could lead to visitor engagement that raises their inquiry self-efficacy, with lasting impacts on achieving success with their future goals. I provide suggestions for future exhibit design that may encourage engagement by making the exhibits more hospitable, that is, open to whoever the visitor is, providing them the opportunity to make their own learning in their own context.