Whole Museum Exit Interview Study for the Natural History Museum of Utah

The third and final study, completed by Serrell and Associates in April 2014 in a program of visitor research at the Natural History Museum of Utah. The Natural History Museum of Utah (NHMU) opened in November 2011, with a total of 51,270 square feet of public interpretive space. In 2012, NHMU began a multiphase evaluation process to help museum staff understand the experiences visitors have during their visits to the new building. The overall purpose of the research is to assess the degree to which the museum is meeting visitor needs and is having the desired impacts, so that future decisions will increase the likelihood that visitors will return and will develop long-term relationships with the institution. The Whole Museum Exit Interview Study (EIS) is the third in the series of studies focused on the experiences visitors have in the whole museum. In this study we sampled casual visitors to the NHMU to explore the following questions: After a visit, what did visitors remember and find meaningful in the exhibitions? To what extent did they perceive and make sense of the educational concepts and communication goals set out by the museum? The EIS was primarily a qualitative study, in which data collectors asked visitors to participate in one of two procedures to reflect on their visits. We administered 63 written Cued Questionnaires (CQs) and 30 face-to-face Exit Interviews (EIs) for a total respondent sample of 93.The study was conducted between December 12 and December 17, 2013. (The methods and the demographics of the 93 subjects are described in later chapters of this report; for methods, see page 11; for demographics see page 19.)