Assignment 2

Problem: Exhibition does not captivate the attention of the students or the follow up in terms of reading the text and science behind is lacking scope

Notes after visiting the exhibition: 

• Media
  • Objects are playable, text is provided as a support, gives more information. 
  • Objects attract attention, invite touching etc. 
  • Small text boxes, difficult to read. Lots of text – repetitive. 
  • Multimedia: screens, objects, written text
  • Dense information
  • Not all technics that were used worked nice >> old stuff
  • Are there different themes at different levels?
• Target audience
  • High school students who visit the university (15-19 years old vwo students)
    • During open days students have the possibility to walk around the exposition
    • It is also possible for students to request a tour via the Science Linx website
  • These highschool students are familiar with science topics already, they know the basics of physics, chemistry and biology.
  • Audience uses media in their daily life
• Problem: After visiting the exposition in entrance of the Bernoulliborg less than 10% of high school students can explain at least 2 of the exhibits
  • Not all things work properly >> irritating
  • Science does not really attract attention >> the objects are attracting, but is difficult to follow up on. 
  • Same plaquette used everywhere. Feels cold
  • Static information transfer >> 1 or 2 interactive things. the rest is pseudo-interactive. Gimmicky in certain aspects. 

Conclusion after visiting the exposition: 

• Way info is displayed does not challenge students
• Make it less sterile/less cold. Not all has to be the same format
• Make it truly interactive (more like brain thing) 

Notes meeting commissioner

• What information do you want to convey with the exhibition
  • depends on exhibition: eg brainthing: convey message how brains work. 
  • Usually about the underlying science 
  • Primary: Get across the spark of interest. secondary: Things they can question, wonder about, afterwards they can come up with a solution. understand. 
• What is the endgoal for you? In terms of %% or other KPI’s 
  • measurable things, quantitative 
    • reasonable: explain exhibits they interacted with, commissioner would be happy. 
    • Goal: deeper understanding. 
  • More understanding of what they are doing, “we had fun for five minutes” >> not the point, wasted opportunity. 
• Choice was on purpose to use same design for signs: uniform, to signify that the natural sciences are not a single field (so physics is not only physics etc)

Reflections upon meeting with commissioner:

First meeting: open question, otherwise the subject feels threatened. 

questions missed

• How do students come into the exhibitions? 
• when/how is interaction

Problem analysis DESC model:

We decided to use the DESC model for our final problem analysis and to determine our goal. We will only use the first three topics of this model, the description, the effect and the solution, because the goal of this assignment is to come to a proper problem analysis, we don’t reckon a conclusion necessary for this assignment. 

• Description: David

Give an objective and concrete description of what you have observed using “I” statements.

• Effect: Rick

The effect of the current design of some of the exhibitions is that (high school) students do not fully understand what is happening and are not able to retell the exhibition. Students are engaging with the objects, and some exhibitions keep the attention such that students fulfill the activity that is coupled to the exhibition. 

Description (David) :

One of the main problems with the current exhibition stems from the fact that very few students who visit (less than 10%) can explain the exhibits. Information is presented in several ways; this can be text that is written to accompany the practical exhibit or information presented through them interacting with the exhibit itself. The way this information is presented to the students is not one which is sufficiently challenging or engaging for the students, which leads to them paying it less attention and therefore not being able to explain the exhibits later.

We found another issue was the distribution and accessibility of information throughout the exhibit hall. The sizes of the informational plaques are rather small, thus difficult to read, particularly when there are many students in the vicinity. This means the time which a student is likely to spend reading the additional information regarding the exhibit is rather limited, which is also a contributing factor to the initial problem. 

Effect (Rick)

The effect of the current design of some of the exhibitions is that (high school) students do not fully understand what is happening and are not able to retell the exhibition. Students are engaging with the objects, and some exhibitions keep the attention such that students fulfill the activity that is coupled to the exhibition. For other exhibitions, students are not able to retell what the exhibition is about, which is likely to be an effect of the way the information is presented to the students. 

Solution: (Roeland)

We concluded the way the info is displayed in the exhibition does not challenge students. In order to attract more attention from the students we deem it necessary to engage them by asking critical questions. By setting up the exhibition more active, independent investigation will be encouraged and boredom will be alleviated through activity. The main goal of the renewed exhibition will be to build confidence through experimentation of the students. This can be achieved by making the exhibits truly interactive, more like brain training rather than an presentation. This way, critical thinking will be triggered more, resulting in more understanding of the science at hand. 

We also advise to make the exhibition less sterile/cold. In the current setup, all items in the exhibition have the same format. By varying the appearance of these items, the exhibition will attract more attention and have a better appeal.