ACQUARIO DI GENOVA

• 5th Italian cultural site per number of visitors (after Vatican Museums,

Pompei, Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Doge’s Palace in Venice) • 1.300.000 visitors per year• 17.000.000 visitors since the opening (12 October 1993)• 63 exhibit tanks• 12.000 animals • 330 meters long• 10.000 m2 exhibit area

ACQUARIO DI GENOVA

AQUARING

MediaScientists

Tourist operators

MediaScientists

Tourist operators

AQUARINGAQUARING web portal

Unifiedsemantic classification

and indexing

Value added

services- High quality

contents- Scientific

data- Touristservices

Value added

services- High quality

contents- Scientific

data- Touristservices

Museumsand

Aquaria

Museumsand

Aquaria

Pre Visit•Visit planning•Information material

•Tourist informationPost visit •Educational effectiveness evaluation

•Additional material•Education support

Pre Visit•Visit planning•Information material

•Tourist informationPost visit •Educational effectiveness evaluation

•Additional material•Education support

InformationInformationEducationEducationEntertainmentEntertainment

InformationInformationEducationEducationEntertainmentEntertainment

Citizens, Visitors, Schools,TeachersCitizens, Visitors, Schools,Teachers

Direct visit !Direct visit !

Co-funded

by European Union

eContentplus

AQUARINGCoordination

Acquario di Genova - Costa Edutainment S.p.A. (IT)Content Providers and Scientific Experts

Acquario di Genova - Costa Edutainment S.p.A. (IT)Nausicaa - French National Sea Centre (FR)Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Science (B)Rotterdam Zoo (NL)Lithuanian Sea Museum (LT)

IT PartnersSofteco Sismat SpA (IT)Foundation Robotiker (ES)

EvaluationUniversity of Genoa, Department of Anthropological Sciences (DISA) (IT)

Awareness and disseminationECSITE, European Network of Science Centres and Museums (B)

The educational effectivenessof living museums

The general aim of this evaluative research is to improve the performance of Genoa Aquarium in promoting the informal education and awareness of its visitors.

To this aim, the research team is developing qualitative and quantitative research activities finalised to construct an index of the educational effectiveness of the visit to the Aquarium, which varies between 0 to 100 and enable the management to easier identify the strength’ & weakness’ elements of the visit from the educational point of view

The educational effectivenessof living museums

Research methodologyWhen we evaluate something, we always evaluate “this something” in a given context, in a given moment.The educational effectiveness refers to educational objectives; our first question was: whose objectives?We applied the “Triangle for the public policy evaluation” (Palumbo, 2003)

Research methodology – focus groups

By focus groups and interviews with operators and directional staff, the educational effectiveness of the visit has been split in specific educational objectives shared by the implied actors:

- emotional objectives (emotional involvement, motivation to gain deeper knowledge…)

- cognitive objectives (specific knowledge about animal kingdom and habitats, relations between human society and environment…)

- behavior objectives (activation of visitors toward new behaviors respectful of the environment…)

The educational effectivenessof living museums

Research methodology – visit analysis

By deep analysis of the exhibit areas, key elements linked to educational objectives (input variables) and personal and context elements also linked to educational effectiveness (intervening variables) have been identified:

- input variables (tanks, signs, panels, audio and video messages…)

- intervening variables (age, sex, occupation, cultural background, attitude to observe, to analyze, to interpret; crowding of visitors, troubles from operators at work, coherent/in-coherent messages from society...)

The educational effectivenessof living museums

Research methodology – survey on visitors

“pre” and “post” visit questionnaires have been structured on the basis of previous steps, and “pre” and “post” visit surveys on visitors have been conducted to check:

- the correspondence of visitors needs and expectations with the objectives shared by operators and directional staff

- the effectiveness of the visit helping the visitors to achieve those objectives.

385 questionnaires have been given to visitors before the visit; 456 questionnaires have been given to visitors after the visit.

The educational effectivenessof living museums

The index

The educational effectiveness index is based on 10 Likert items; the respondent attribute a value from 1 to 5 (i.e. “The visit make me learn something new”)

The educational effectivenessof living museums

Strongly disagree Disagree Partially agree,

partially disagree Agree Strongly agree

1 2 3 4 5

Variable from 1 to 5 have been recoded in variable from 0 to 100.The synthetic educational effectiveness index correspond to the mean of the means calculated on all items.

Intermediate research results

The educational effectivenessof living museums

ITEMS EXP EV EV - EXPrelaxing visit 80 87 7enjoyable visit 77 78 1exciting visit 84 85 1discovered new things 86 84 -3found detailed information 85 81 -4known curiosities 85 79 -6learnt environment problems 69 66 -3learnt how men's behaviors damage environment 75 64

-10learnt how men's behaviors protect environment 76 60

-16learnt how my behavior can protect environment 77 64

-13

mean of means 75

Further steps, open prospects

This is still an ongoing research project.

We are developing further statistic analysis to construct and validate the index.

To this aim the Aquarium’ staff will reconsider the items related to the educational objectives and will attribute them different weights according to the objectives’ priority.

The index will be constructed within the end of this year, discussing the intermediate results and deciding together further steps; the index will then be tested within the spring.

The educational effectivenessof living museums