This intrinsic case study examines art museum learning of elementary school students during a week-long visit at the Mackenzie Art Museum. Museums are informative institutions that provide opportunities for visitors to engage with self, others, and society. It is a unique place for visitors to learn beyond classroom settings. This project aims to…

Purpose: Relatively few studies have examined the perspectives of informal learning facilitators who play key roles in cultivating an equitable learning environment for nondominant youth and families in making and tinkering spaces. This study aims to foreground the perspectives of facilitators and highlight the complexities and tensions that…

Museum-based mathematics exhibitions are increasingly prominent but under-theorized learning environments. In this study, we analyse the curriculum of United States mathematics exhibitions developed in the early 21st century in terms of their complex suggestions about the nature of mathematics and mathematical sense-making. We apply Rancière's…

Epistemic agency is situated within social, cultural, and material contexts of learning. Making and inventing supports children's and families' creative thinking, problem-solving, and knowledge construction, through which they are positioned as active knowledge agents and their epistemic agency is represented. This article examines how the…

The Roman Empire covered a large area, including parts of present-day Hungary. There are many still visible remains in the landscape or in museums. In addition to written sources, there are monuments ranging from objects to architecture, pictures and sculptures. This makes it possible to question and compare the significance of the individual…

The Volkskundemuseum (Austrian Museum of Folklife and Folk Art) in Vienna considers itself to be a thoroughly democratic, polyphonic museum in which not only cooperation partners but also the interested public have their say. But what role does academically researched information play? In the project "Speaking of Objects" participants…

We demonstrate the ways an improvisational dance workshop provided the opportunity for university students to be autonomous actors and engage in embodied sense-making through dance--two key parts of the conceptualization of enactive cognition. As part of a Design-Based Research project, we use Interaction Analysis to present examples of using…

This study explored the effects of a self-adapted mobile concept mapping-based problem-posing (CMPP) approach applied in a virtual museum context. To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a quasi-experimental design was applied to compare the critical thinking tendency, meta-cognition tendency, problem-solving tendency,…

Background: Research is needed to better understand the specific challenges for autistic learners in informal STEM learning settings. This study aimed to increase inclusion in STEM museums, with a larger goal of increasing the impact (i.e., learning and application of knowledge during and after visits) of informal STEM learning settings for…

Out-of-school science education is important for students' emotional outcomes, such as their interest in science. Not all students, however, have access to real outdoor environments for hands-on learning. To address this issue, live streaming technology allows for real-time interaction and video-based instruction, which can enhance students'…

Research on the educational value of play tends to focus on active players, especially when evaluating novel interaction technologies. However, a long history of scholarship underscores observing communal practice as a primary means of enculturation and learning. This paper demonstrates learning opportunities available within a range of…

Museums are traditionally considered public service settings with educational functions and practical learning resources for students. Early childhood teachers' intention to implement class visits to museums is still very low. This paper synthesizes the theory of planned behavior model (TPB) and core determinants of the technology acceptance model…

To truly fulfill their missions and make positive strides toward the conservation of our ocean, aquariums need to reach diverse audiences and reflect their local communities. Reaching audiences not adequately represented at our facilities takes work and time. It requires building relationships and trust. We need to understand which audiences are…

This research brief describes recent methodological initiatives with the Public Libraries Survey. It describes how starting with the 2022 data, Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) updated geographic identifiers to better align Census Bureau geography types with the library's legal service area, with the goal of enabling data users to…

Inquiry can be an effective educational strategy for building critical thinking and student agency, but it is also a catalyst for scientific research. This study built upon a foundation of inquiry as 25 adolescents participated in a nine-week guided inquiry curriculum focused on smartphones and digital responsibility. As participants developed…