Since 1986, OMSI has had an internal evaluator for exhibits. Currently, OMSI conducts visitor studies and evaluation to inform and improve exhibit and program development, and often works with external evaluators for both exhibits and programs. There are five basic stages of evaluation used at OMSI — needs assessment, front-end, formative, remedial, and summative.

Since 2006, OMSI has provided this web-based resource to share what we have learned throughout the process of evaluating exhibits and programs. It is intended principally for museum staff and science educators, but may be of use to others interested in informal education. Please use the links above to learn more about each of the five stages in the evaluation process and to view sample reports from evaluations conducted at OMSI. You can also visit www.informalscience.org, a web-based resource where practitioners can share knowledge about informal science learning, to search for evaluations or to post your own.

If you have questions or comments or would like to submit a document for posting, please contact OMSI Visitor Studies and Evaluation staff at: visitorstudies@omsi.edu.

Needs Assessment is the research conducted to support proposal development. This research could include surveys or focus groups as well as literature reviews and other research. The results of these studies help assess the need for an exhibition or program.

Read Needs Assessment Reports

Front-end research is conducted to provide exhibit and program planners with information about their audience during planning stages. In addition, this process serves to reveal assumptions and help advise museum professionals of effective delivery methods.

Read Front-End Reports

Formative evaluation is conducted during the design and building stages of an exhibit or program. This step in the process helps keep the exhibit or program's message focused and catches design flaws or content problems.

Read Formative Reports

Remedial evaluation takes place once the exhibit or program is open to the public. It is a time when museum staff and designers can make any necessary repairs or modifications, and often times these are problems that were not, or could not be, identified during the earlier stages of development (such as lighting, crowd flow, signage and other issues). With exhibits specifically, the evaluation team helps to identify any cognitive problems that may arise and offer suggestions for correcting them while the exhibit fabricators fix any physical problems that prevent an exhibit component from functioning properly.

Read Remedial Reports

Summative evaluation also takes place once the exhibit or program is open to the public. However, it differs from Remedial evaluation in that it evaluates how well the exhibit or program achieves its goal - do visitors understand the intended message? This step in the evaluation process provides the opportunity to evaluate the exhibit or program's efficacy, and it serves to inform future exhibit and program planning. Often this evaluation is conducted by an external evaluator and is usually required by the funding source.

Read Summative Reports

At OMSI, research studies are conducted to support projects, including exhibits, programs, and museum initiatives. This research can support proposal development (e.g., interviews with former program participants), it can inform the internal operations of the museum (e.g., pedestrian traffic flow or elevator usage studies), or it can help museum staff expand their existing knowledge (e.g., new audience profiles or best practices for bilingual label development). This research is disseminated in a variety of ways including presentations at conferences, presentations to OMSI staff, or on the Web.

Read Other Reports and Presentations