Museums

Our evaluations and research support learning in museum spaces as well as museum partnerships with educational institutions such as pre-schools, K-12 and post-secondary schools, and summer and after-school programs. We examine audiences, exhibits, curriculum and digital resources, and institutional processes related to scaling and organizational development. Our team is experienced in applying qualitative and quantitative research methods in the context of informal and formal educational spaces, and has developed specialized expertise in conducting visitor intercepts, focus groups, interviews, surveys and observations with museum partners.

Please explore selected examples of our projects with Museums below. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your project with you and to provide you with more information about our tailored services. Please Contact Us to schedule a free 30-minute Q&A session with a consultant.

Selected Projects Include

  • Photo courtesy of spacedust2019 via CC licensing.

    Bay Area Discovery Museum

    REA has conducted numerous research and evaluation projects with the Bay Area Discovery Museum (BADM), one of the country’s leading children’s museums dedicated to the emotional and cognitive growth of young children. REA has led evaluations of the Try-it-Truck, a mobile engineering lab serving K-5 students, libraries and community centers, and workshops for Head Start parents on the importance of executive function in young children. We also developed of an observation protocol for BADM education staff to assess impact of onsite museum programs.

  • Photo by Richard Hirajeta on Unsplash

    Cleveland Museum of the Arts

    Through funding from the National Endowment of the Arts, The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) sought to understand how digital experiences change the way visitors experience an art museum and how to measure the value of interactive experiences in these spaces. The CMA’s innovative ARTLENS Gallery served as a testing ground for the research, which resulted in the development of a toolkit to help other art museums measure the impact of digital technologies in their own institutions.

  • Photo courtesy of Mark Richards via CC licensing.

    Computer History Museum “Get Invested”

    The Computer History Museum (CHM), located in Mountain View, CA, showcases the history and future of computing and technology. REA conducted evaluation projects for a number of CHM education programs and exhibits. These include an evaluation of CHM’s Get Invested program that provided high school students in the US and Mexico opportunities to develop apps to address critical social challenges; a front-end evaluation with museum visitors for CHM’s Make Software exhibit, and case study documentation of the planning and design of CHM’s multi-modal Learning Lab.

  • Photo by Robin Schreiner: https://www.pexels.com/photo/wooden-bench-2261165/

    Indianapolis Museum of Art

    The Indianapolis Museum of Art is located on a large campus with over 150 acres of gardens, woods, and walking paths. The museum commissioned this study as it shifted from free and open access to paid admission, seeking to alleviate confusion for visitors as they navigated between the museum and outdoor spaces. REA developed a wayfinding exercise for visitors that helped identify the points of confusion for participants and how signage, maps, and other navigation prompts could alleviate these problems.

  • Photo by J. Amill Santiago on Unsplash

    Lineage

    The Lineage project was a collaboration between Twin Cities Public Television and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The project included creation of a feature-length film called “When Whales Walked,” hands-on activities, and a Virtual Reality game—all of which were incorporated as part of a series of fossil festivals at museums and other sites around the US. REA conducted evaluations of fossil festival experiences and attendee outcomes and tested the impact of film viewership on participants’ VR and hands-on experiences.