Testing a museum exhibition design assumption: Effect of explicit labeling of exhibit clusters on visitor concept development

The purpose of this study was to investigate a museum exhibition design assumption that visitors develop conceptual understanding of a science topic after utilizing a cluster of conceptually related exhibits which lack explicit concept labeling; also investigated was whether visitor concept development could be enhanced through the addition of explicit labeling about the intended conceptual messages. Two very different clusters of exhibits were selected for investigation: how transportation in Los Angeles affects air pollution (“Transportation”) and the conception and early development of vertebrates (“Eggciting Beginnings”). The two exhibition clusters were assessed under two treatments—with and without explicit labeling informing visitors of the intended conceptual messages. Visitors demonstrated statistically significant concept development, as measured by changes in pre- to posttest scores, in the Transportation cluster under both treatment conditions (with and without explicit labeling), but in the Eggciting Beginnings cluster only under the explicit labeling condition. When data from both sets of exhibit clusters were pooled, visitors evidenced significant concept development in all conditions. The findings from this study support the contention that visitors can, and do acquire both factual and conceptual information as a consequence of relatively brief interactions (on the order of 2–5 minutes) with clusters of related science exhibits; and this learning can be facilitated by explicitly and repeatedly displaying the conceptual messages to be communicated.