Practical Evaluation Guide: Tools for Museums and Other Informal Educational Settings (American Association for State & Local History) - Softcover

This essential guide to evaluation in informal settings is now updated. Practical Evaluation Guide fills an important niche for first-time evaluators and seasoned professionals. The new evaluator can quickly pick up some basic tools and try them out, whereas the more experienced professional will find the expanded coverage on learning assessment and IRBs a useful adjunct in the current era of educational accountability. Highly recommended for evaluation courses in museum studies and similar programs. -- E. Margaret Evans, University of Michigan Practical Evaluation Guide belongs on the bookshelf of every museum professional involved in exhibit design, production, or evaluation. This new edition takes into account the latest research as well as information provided by the National Research Council and National Science Foundation. A very welcome resource for the field! -- Erika Shugart, National Academy of Sciences The increasing emphasis on evaluation from government and private granting sources makes evaluation not an option - but an imperative. The revised Practical Evaluation Guide should be required reading by novice and expert evaluators, funders and grant recipients, and anyone who wants to understand the museum enterprise. -- Zahava D. Doering, Smithsonian Institution; Editor, Curator: The Museum Journal Practical and thorough, this straightforward guide emphasizes that data alone, no matter how extensive, cannot substitute for careful planning and expertise in interpretation. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. CHOICE, April 2010 An extraordinary book! This volume is a user-friendly roadmap for helping museum educators use innovative research tools to evaluate the success of their programs. Judy Diamond and her colleagues present assessment tools and strategies that allow both educators and participants to see more clearly what kinds of learning take place in informal environments. This book will be of great value to all teachers who want to expand their skills and satisfy their curiosity. -- Richard Ponzio, University of California, Davis It is timely that the second edition of the Practical Evaluation Guide has landed on our doorstep in a revised format, including two additional authors and updated case examples. As was the 1999 edition, the Practical Evaluation Guide is an essential resource for the beginning and experienced evaluator working in large or small organisations...Part 2 makes this book an invaluable resource. It is written in a user-friendly format, is clear and concise, again with many practical examples drawn from museums and other informal learning settings...An essential reference for anyone working in any area of museums and informal educational settings, not only those in evaluation and audience research. Visitor Studies

Administrators of museums and other informal-learning centers often need to demonstrate, in some tangible way, the effectiveness of their institutions as teaching tools. Practical Evaluation Guide discusses specific methods for analyzing audience learning and behavior in museums, zoos, botanic gardens, nature centers, camps, and youth programs. This new edition incorporates the many advances in the burgeoning field of informal learning that have been made over the past decade. Practical Evaluation Guide serves as a basic, easy-to-follow guide for museum professionals and students who want to understand the effects of such public institutions on the people who visit them.