PRELIMINARY RESULTS FROM AN OBSERVATIONAL VISITOR STUDY OF A DIGITAL GEOLOGIC TIME EXHIBIT IN A SCIENCE MUSEUM

Digital exhibits have become more common in science museums (Hinrichs et al. 2008). However, the impact and assessment of visitor interactions with digital exhibits in such spaces is an understudied topic (Li et al. 2022). This study seeks to fill this gap and advance our understanding of how people learn and interact with digital exhibits in science museums in order to inform science museum staff making decisions about science exhibit selection and design. An observational case study was conducted to describe and characterize the engagement patterns of Beaty Biodiversity Museum (Canada) visitors with a digital geologic time exhibit named DeLVE (Deep-time Literacy Visualization Exhibit). DeLVE was designed by the authors to foster science museum visitors’ conceptualizations of geologic time and is the subject of a larger design study (Solen et al. in preparation). Observations included tracking and timing museum visitors, their gestural behavior and comments, and their age estimates and group size. Observations were coded using a science engagement framework with behavioral, affective, and cognitive dimensions (Schmidt et al. 2018). A total of 1160 observations were made in proximity of DeLVE. The majority did not look at or interact with DeLVE (52%); 37% looked at it, but did not stop at exhibit; 5% stopped at exhibit and only looked at it; and 6% directly interacted with DeLVE features (behavioral engagement). Further analysis of interactions with the exhibit (n=71), showed that the majority of this subset of visitors (53%) engaged beyond simply navigating through part of the exhibit (behavioral). Specifically, 11% of the people who interacted with DeLVE also displayed a cognitive engagement pattern (interest in content and content design features), 28% displayed an affective engagement pattern (expressions and gestures were visible and positive; no negative expressions observed), and 14% demonstrated both cognitive and affective engagement patterns. These preliminary results suggest that a digital exhibit, such as DeLVE, may spark situational or individual interest, as evidenced from visitor cognitive and affective engagement patterns. Observations from this study also yielded insights and questions about visitor behavior that can inform future visitor studies with interviews and lab study methodologies.