Evaluating educational programs in museums: a new perspective

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. In the current article we present the Qualitative Assessment of Spanish Museums Educative Programs R&D project, funded by the office of Economy and Competitiveness (MICINN-12EDU-27835). The aim is to locate the good practices profile. This project means an alternative focus to the educative and cultural assessment in the Spanish museums. The development of ECPEME has meant an alternative focus from the methodological tradition applied in the museums of Spain. The final goal is to create a good museum environment practice profile. METHOD. Based on 13 Spanish museums, the assessment design applied has been observational. In addition, the information has been gathered through various procedures; field diaries, observation records, interviews, and discussion groups. The information analysis has been based on: a) descriptive analysis, b) a cross-sectional survey, c) an assessment done by the research team. RESULTS. The results show that the more important data are those obtained from the cross-sectional analysis of the multiple study case through a statistic-descriptive treatment as it shows satisfactory quality levels of the cultural and educative action in the museums. These results confirm the data collected by the qualitative analysis, not present in this study due to its considerable extension, but available online at the ECPEME site (http://ecpeme.com/). In addition, we also consider as a result, the application of a specific methodological design we present for educative programs adapted to the museum environment. DISCUSSION. Finally, the impact is discussed, and the evaluation