Innovating visitor research within museums: Concepts, tools and practices

Abstract

Increasing demands on museums for visitor insights, theoretical shifts in the learning sciences, the embeddedness of multimodal media in museums and society, and advancements in data visualisation tools and web-based applications are all clear calls for innovating visitor research in museums. In this article, I describe how concepts from multimodal and sociocultural research help shift the analytical lens for understanding and studying connections between visitor behaviours, social interactions and engagement in exhibitions. The following question is explored: In which ways can multimodal theory and the learning sciences inform the design and use of new visitor research tools and methods that are relevant for museum practice? A case study from a university-museum research partnership illustrates how multimodal and sociocultural perspectives from the humanities and learning sciences, respectively, merged in the development of a new tool to enhance and innovate visitor research within museums.