Trade-offs between instruction and exploration with interactive objects

In this study, the authors consider the pros and cons of providing structures that focus inquiry at exhibits. Their research examined visitor behaviors with and without specific prompts at an exhibit. They found that the provision of additional materials and textual explanations limited visitor engagement at the exhibit to the express purpose defined by the added materials/text. Without the additional props, visitors were more exploratory and inventive in their uses of the exhibits; however, in these cases visitors often did not focus on a particular conceptual idea that the exhibit developers had been trying to communicate. The authors of this study examine these trade-offs by considering the “frames” that the museum visitors use and how they might be cued by physical artifacts.