Tag Archives: visitors

What’s your recruitment style?

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Last week, Dr. Rowe and I visited Portland Art Museum to help assist with a recruitment push for participants in their Conversations About Art evaluation and I noticed all of the education staff involved have very different styles of how they recruited visitors to participate in the project. Styles ranged from the apologetic (e.g. “do you mind if I interrupt you to help us”), to incentive-focused (e.g. “get free tickets!) to experiential (e.g. “participating will be fun and informative!”)

This got me thinking a lot about  the significance of people skills and a researcher’s recruitment style in educational studies this week. How does the style in which you get participants involved influence a) how many participants you actually recruit, and b) the quality of the participation (i.e. do they just go through the motions to get the freebie incentive?) Thinking back to prior studies of FCL alum here from OSU, I realized that nearly all the researchers I knew had a different approach to recruitment, be it in person, on the phone or via email, and that in fact it is a learned skill that we don’t often talk too much about.

I’ve been grateful for my success at recruiting both docents and visitors for my research on docent-visitor interactions, which is mostly the result of taking the “help a graduate student complete their research” approach – one that I borrowed from interacting with prior Marine Resource Management colleagues of mine, Abby Nickels and Alicia Christensen during their masters research on marine education activities. Such an approach won’t be much help in the future once I finally get out of grad school, so the question to consider is what factors make for successful participant recruitment? It seems the common denominator is people skills, and by people skills I mean the ability to engage a potential recruit on a level that removes skepticism around being commandeered off the street.  You have to be not only trustworthy, but also approachable. I’ve definitely noticed with my own work that on off days where I’m tired and have trouble maintaining a smiley face for long periods of time at the HMSC entrance, recruitment seems harder. All those younger years spent in customer service jobs and learning how to deal with the public in general seem so much more worthwhile!

So fellow researchers and evaluators, my question for you is what are your strategies for recruiting participants? Do you agree people skills are an important underlying factor? Do you over/under estimate your own personal influence on participant recruitment?

 

 

 

The influence of the visitor cyborgs

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Well the data collection for my research has been underway for nearly 2 months now, how time flies! For those of you new to this project, my research centers on documenting the practice of science center docents as they interact with visitors. Data collection includes video observations of voluntary docents at HMSC using “visitor-mounted” looxcie cameras, as well as pre- and post-observation interviews with those participating docents.

“Visitor-eye view using the looxcies”

My current focus is getting the video observations of  each of the 10 participating docents collected. In order to conduct a post observation interview (which asks docents to reflect on their practice), I need to get about 10-15 minutes of video data of each of the docents interacting with the public. This doesn’t sound like much, but when you can’t guarantee a recruited family will interact with a recruited docent,  and an actual interaction will likely only last from 30 seconds to a few minutes, it takes a fair few families wearing cameras to get what you need. However, I’m finding this process really enjoyable both in getting to know the docents and meeting visitors.

When I first started this project I was worried that visitors would be a little repelled about the idea of having their whole visit recorded. What I’m actually finding is that either a) they want to help the poor grad student complete her thesis, b) they think the cameras are fun and “want a go” or c) they totally want one of the HMSC tote bags being used as an incentive (what can I say, everyone loves free stuff right?!) The enthusiasm for the cameras has gone as far as one gentleman running up to a docent, jumping up and down and shouting “I’m wearing a camera, I’m wearing a camera!” Additionally, and for those star trek fans out there, a number of visitors and colleagues alike have remarked how much wearing a looxcie makes a person look like a borg (i.e. cyborg), particularly with that red light thing…

Now how, may you ask, does that not influence those lovely naturalistic interactions you’re supposed to be observing? Well, as many of us qualitative researchers know, that unless you hide the fact you are observing a person (an element our IRB process is not particularly fond of) you can never truly remove that influence, but you can assume that if particular practices are observed often enough, they are part of the landscape you are observing. The influence of the cameras may alter how naturalistic that interaction may be, but that interaction is still a reflection of social behaviors taking place. People do not completely change their personality and ways of life simply because a camera is around; more likely any behavior changes may simply be over- or under-exaggerated normative actions. And I am finding patterns, lots of patterns, in the discourse and action taking place between docents and visitors.

However, I am paying attention to how visitors and docents react to the cameras. When filtering the footage for interactions, I look out for any discourse that indicates camera influence is an issue. As examples, the docent in the “jumping man” footage reacts surprised to the man’s sudden shouting, open’s his eyes wide and nervously laughs – to which I noted on the video that the interaction from then on may irregular. In one clip I have a docent talking non-stop about waves seemingly without taking a breath for nearly 8 minutes – to which I noted seemed unnatural in comparison to their other shorter dialogue events. Another clip has a docent bursting out laughing at a visitor wearing one of the looxices attached to his baseball cap using a special clip I have (not something I expected!) – to which I noted would have likely made the ability for the visitor to forget about the looxcie less possible.

All in all, however, most visitors remark they actually forget they are wearing the camera as they visit goes on, simply because they are distracted by their actual visit. This makes me happy, as the purpose of incorporating the looxcies was to reduce the influence of being videod as a whole. Visitors forget to a point where, during pilots, one man actually walked into the bathroom wearing his looxcie, and recorded some footage I wasn’t exactly intending to observe… suffice to say, I instantly deleted that video and and updated my recruitment spiel to include a reminder not to take the cameras in to the bathroom. Social science never ceases to surprise me!

Visitor datum one: Visit motivation

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Despite our fancy technology, there are some pieces of data we have to gather the old-fashioned way: by asking visitors. One piece we’d like to know is why visitors chose to visit on this particular occasion. We’re building off of John Falk’s museum visitor motivation and identity work, which began with a survey that asks visitors to rate a series of statements on Likert (1-5) scales as to how applicable they are for them that day, and reveals a rather small set of motives driving the majority of visits. We also have used this framework in a study of three of our local informal science education venues, finding that an abbreviated version works equally well to determine which (if any) of these motivations drives visitors. The latest version, tried at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, uses photos along with the abbreviated number of statements for the visitors to identify their visit motivations.

We’re implementing a version on an iPad kiosk in the VC for a couple of reasons: first, we genuinely want to know why folks are visiting, and want to be able to correlate identity motivations with the automated behavior, timing, and tracking data we collect from the cameras. Second, we hope people will stop long enough for us to get a good reference photo for the facial recognition system. Sneaky, perhaps, but it’s not the only place we’re trying to position cameras for good reference shots. And if all goes well with our signage, visitors will be more aware than ever that we’re doing research, and that it is ultimately aimed at improving their experience. Hopefully that awareness will allay most of the final fears about the embedded research tools that we are hoping will be minimal to start with.

Signs, signs, everywhere signs

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How do we get signs in front of visitors so they will actually read them? Think about how many signs at the front door of your favorite establishment you walk past without reading. How many street signs, billboards, and on-vehicle ads pass through our vision barely a blur? While exhibit designers spend many an hour toiling away to create the perfect signs to offer visitors some background and possible ways to interact with objects, many visitors gloss right over them, preferring to just start interacting or looking in their own way. This may be a fine alternative use for most cases, but in the case of our video research and the associated informed consent that our subjects need to offer, signs at the front door are going to be our best bet to inform visitors but not unduly interrupt their experience, or make museum entry and additional unreasonable burden for visitors or staff. Plus, the video recording is not optional at this point for folks who visit; you can visit and be recorded, or you can’t visit.

Thankfully, we have the benefit of the Exploratorium and other museums who have done video research in certain exhibits and have tested signs at their entrances and the percentage of visitors who subsequently know they’re being recorded for research. Two studies by the Exploratorium staff showed that their signs at entrances to specifically cordoned-off areas stating that videotaping for research was in progress were effective at informing 99% of visitors to the exhibit areas that a) videotaping was happening and b) it was for research. One interesting point is that their testing of the signs themselves and the language on them revealed that the camera icon needed to be rather old-school/highly professional looking to distinguish itself from the average visitor making home movies while visiting a museum and be clearly associated with official research purposes.


Source: store.sony.com via Free-Choice on Pinterest

Never mind the cameras we’re actually using look more like surveillance cameras.

 

So our strategy, crafted with our Institutional Review Board, is several-fold. Signs at the front entrance (and the back entrance, for staff and volunteers, and other HMSC visitors who might be touring the entire research facility for other reasons and popping in to the VC) will feature the large research camera and a few, hopefully succinct and clear words about the reasons we’re doing research, and where to get more information. We also have smaller signs on some of the cameras themselves with a short blurb about the fact that it’s there for research purposes. Next, we’re making handouts for people that will explain in more detail what our research is about and how the videos help us with that work. We’ll also put that information on our web site, and add the address of the video research information to our rack cards and other promotional material we send around town and Oregon. Of course, our staff and volunteers are also being included in the process so they are well-equipped to answer visitor questions.

Then there’s the thorny issue of students. University students who are over 18 who are visiting as part of a required class will have to individually consent due to federal FERPA regulations. We’re working with the IRB to make this as seamless a process as possible. We’ll be contacting local school superintendents to let them know about the research and let them inform parents of any class that will be attending on a field trip. These students on class field trips will be assumed to have parental consent by virtue of having signed school permission slips to attend Hatfield.

Hopefully this will all work. The Exploratorium’s work showed that even most people who didn’t realize they were being recorded were not bothered much by the recording, and even fewer would have avoided the area if they’d actually known before hand. As always, though, it will be a work-in-progress as we get visitor and volunteer feedback and move forward with the research.

Gutwill, J. (2003). “Gaining visitor consent for research II: Improving the posted-sign method.” Curator
46(2): 228-235

Gutwill, J. (2002). “Gaining visitor consent for research: Testing the posted-sign method.” Curator 45(3): 232-238.

Back in the saddle

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We’re ready for round 2 of camera placement, having met with Lab advisor Sigrid Norris on Monday. We’ll go back to focusing on the wave- and touch-tank areas and getting full coverage of interactions. Basically, our first test left us spread too thin to really capture what’s going on, and our programmer said face detection and recognition is not robust enough to be able to track visitors through the whole center  yet anyway. Though now of course we’re running out of ethernet ports in the front half of the Visitor Center for those extra cameras.

One thing we had been noticing with the cameras was a lot of footage of “backs and butts” as people walk away from one camera or are facing a different exhibit. Sigrid’s take on this is that it is actually valuable data, capturing multimodal communication modes of posture and foot and body position. This is especially true for peripheral participants, such as group members who are watching more than driving the activity, or other visitors learning how to use exhibits by watching those who are there first.

We did figure out the network issue that was causing the video stoppage/skipping. The cameras had been set up all on the same server and assumed to share the load between the two servers for the system, but they needed to be set up on both servers in order to make the load sharing work. This requires some one-time administrative configuration work on the back end, but the client (what the researchers using the system see) still displays all camera feeds regardless of what server is driving which camera at any given time. So now it’s all hunky dory.

The wave tanks are also getting some redesigns after all the work and testing over the summer. The shore tank wave maker (the “actuator”) won’t be made of aluminum (too soft), and will have hydraulic braking to slow the handle as it reaches the end points. The wave energy tank buoys are getting finished, then that tank will be sealed and used to show electricity generation in houses and buildings set on top. We’ll also get new tables for all three tanks which will lack middle legs and give us probably a bit more space to work with for the final footprint. We’ll get the flooring replaced with wet lab flooring to prevent slip hazards and encourage drainage.

Preparing for a different type of tsunami

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Another of our interns, (actually, they are all Oregon Sea Grant Summer Scholars), Nick, lets us know what it’s like trying to prepare for the “visitor tsunami” that’s bound to occur when we get our third wave tank all set, based somewhat on the inundation he gets as an on-floor interpreter:

“Working as a docent for the front desk and touch pools has provided abundant opportunity to interact with the public and I seem to learn as much information as I provide. Visitors ask so many interesting questions and also ask about local marine events: how is the Sea Turtle doing that washed up on the shore, inquiries about the tsunami debris and recently the Brown Pelican crisis at the Yaquina Head seabird colony. Visitors also bring in some unusual items and ask for help identifying them; one man brought in an orca tooth that he had discovered eroding out of a cliff.

Among my favorite duties is acting as the guide for the daily tour of the Yaquina Bay estuary describing the marine plants and animals of the bay. Participants especially like discovering the tiny crabs that are often living under the very rocks they are standing on. It is pretty rewarding and members of the tour group have often told me that after taking the tour, they now want to become marine biologists.  I have also been helping with the Ocean Quest multimedia presentation in the auditorium. We have been working out the bugs in the presentation and it is finally at a point where we are happy with it.

Our main project involves working on three wave tank exhibits. Brian has been working with the wave energy exhibit, designing an experimental “wave power” device that looks like a futuristic mechanical snake. Diana has been working with the erosion tank and has had to be vigilant in order to prevent the “sandy beach” from becoming a mess from enthusiastic children. My project has been working with our tsunami tank. I have been working on designing ideal tsunami proof structures as well as showing buildings that will not be able to survive the wave. Using Legos as building materials, I have attempted to construct scale models of different building to see if the various designs are demolished or not with the wave tank.

The tsunami project has had some problems associated with it. For starters we have had endless computer glitches and malfunctions that often make it difficult just to run the machine. We have also been experimenting with different lengths of continental slope (represented by an acrylic ramp). Additionally, we found that Legos seem to stick together really, really well….sometimes so well that buildings that should be demolished are still left standing!  We have had to resort to sanding the individual bricks so that they do not stick together as well and will better represent actual building materials. We are hopeful that these problems will be fixed within a few weeks when we plan to open the tank to the public. The educational intent of the display is to challenge visitors to construct a building that can stand up to a tsunami wave. We are confident it has the makings of a fun and interesting exhibit and hope it will be very popular with our visitors!”