ACQUARIO DI GENOVA 5 th Italian cultural site per number of visitors (after Vatican Museums, Pompei, Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Doge’s Palace in Venice) visitors per year visitors since the opening (12 October 1993) 63 exhibit tanks animals 330 meters long m 2 exhibit area

ACQUARIO DI GENOVA

AQUARING Media Scientists Tourist operators AQUARING AQUARING web portal Unified semantic classification and indexing Value added services - High quality contents - Scientific data - Tourist services Value added services - High quality contents - Scientific data - Tourist services Museums and Aquaria Pre Visit Visit planning Information material Tourist information Post visit Educational effectiveness evaluation Additional material Education support Pre Visit Visit planning Information material Tourist information Post visit Educational effectiveness evaluation Additional material Education support InformationEducationEntertainmentInformationEducationEntertainment Citizens, Visitors, Schools,Teachers Direct visit ! Co-funded by European Union eContentplus

AQUARING Coordination 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 Partners Softeco Sismat SpA (IT) Foundation Robotiker (ES) Evaluation University of Genoa, Department of Anthropological Sciences (DISA) (IT) Awareness and dissemination ECSITE, European Network of Science Centres and Museums (B)

The educational effectiveness of 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 effectiveness of living museums Research methodology When 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 effectiveness of 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 effectiveness of 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 effectiveness of 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 effectiveness of living museums Strongly disagree Disagree Partially agree, partially disagree AgreeStrongly agree 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 effectiveness of living museums

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 effectiveness of living museums