Opinions and Understandings of Science Center Visitors About Exhibits and Labels

Year 2021, Volume: 8 Issue: 1, 232 - 247, 01.01.2021

Canan Laçin Şimşek , Meltem Öztürk

https://doi.org/10.17275/per.21.13.8.1

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to determine the opinions and understandings of the visitors coming to the science center, which is an informal learning environment, about the exhibits and labels. For this purpose, the opinions of the visitors about the exhibits and labels, their understanding of the exhibits and labels were examined. The research is qualitatively oriented. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The study group of the research consists of 95 people visiting Kocaeli Science Center between October 2017 and December 2018. In the analysis of the data, content analysis was used. It was determined that the visitors found the exhibits beautiful and interesting, generally noticed the labels and read them. These visitors stated that the labels should be more colorful, remarkable, more easily understandable, their fonts should be bigger and the narration of the label could be supported with visual elements. The vast majority of the visitors stated that they understood what was told in the exhibit, but when asked what they understood, it was seen that the majority of them did not understood it, some of them only described how to use the exhibit. It is thought that the findings will contribute to the literature regarding the science centers.

Keywords

Science Center, informal learning, exhibit, exhibit tags, Science Center Visitors

Thanks

We thank to Kocaeli Science Center for their support.

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