A Study on Relationship between Exhibition Narratives and Visitor Learning Experience: A Case Study of Modern Ark Exhibition in Education Center of Taipei Zoo

Abstract

Museums have transformed their focus from collecting objects to educating the public by means of exhibitions The “museum education” dates back to post-modern museums some 50 years ago With a multitude of revolution museums started to gather professional educators to come up with educational strategies They also sought to work out ways to convey educational messages which is considered a significant objective in their museum guidelines As one type of museums zoos are devoted to animal conservation and conservational education The first zoos were established in the 19th century; overtime the role of zoos have changed from museums to environmental conservation centers UNESCO stated that to increase learner’s interest awareness and sensitivity of environmental protection should be one of the major concepts of environmental education Therefore the role of zoos have become more important nowadays because of current environmental crises The main difference between zoos and other types of museums is that the zoo’s exhibitions consist of living animals and specimens and the abundance of knowledge of animals and the ecosystem are displayed at the exhibitions Further exhibitions are a way to communicate with the public Through interpretations the zoo can convey educational information At the same time the structures of interpretation affect the visitors’ perceptions and the meaning of displays In order to provide good communication distinguishing the identities of visitors understanding their behavior as well as visitor experience and expectation for exhibitions are increasingly crucial This study invited 24 adults and four groups of elementary school students to participate and explored the visitor experience of the Modern Ark exhibition Further we sought to understand the objectives of exhibition interpretation and analyzed its impact to visitor experience The results showed that the methods of interpretation had a great relationship with the visitor experience The visitor experience can be broken down into several categories including the attractiveness of interpretation methods the impact on visitor experience and the visitor outcomes

Date of Award	2018 Aug 13
Original language	English
Supervisor	Hui-Wen Lin (Supervisor)