Exploration On The Museum Visitors Research And Evaluation System

As more and more museums regard "visitor-centered" as an important goal of their own development,profound changes have taken place in the significance and value of visitor research and evaluation to museums.Taking the development of domestic museums as an example,state-owned museums in the cultural system have generally entered the era of free admission since 2008.Academic achievements with the theme of "visitor research" or "visitor evaluation"(or "visitor survey")have also shown an explosive growth.Behind this relevance,to a certain extent,it reflects that domestic museum researchers and practitioners begin to seek a change of thinking:can our museum meet the spiritual and cultural needs of the public?Can our exhibition bring the desired effect to the visitors?etc.When people gradually find that the development concept with "collection studies" as the core is difficult to respond satisfactorily to these questions from the public,"visitor studies" begins to be regarded as a possible solution.appears in the field of vision of more and more researchers and practitioners.However,this change in thinking has not brought about a fundamental change in the way museums work.Although domestic museums have only paid close attention to visitor research and evaluation for 10 years,the development process of visitor studies in North America for more than 100 years,there are still very common and sharp contradictions,both in practice and theory.For example,although almost all museums regard "visitor-centered" as a basic feature of contemporary museums,however,museums that can incorporate visitor research and evaluation into their daily work are still a "Minority" in number.Despite the explosive growth of visitor research and evaluation in the West countries since the 1970s,the related achievements have not been well inherited,resulting in a large number of repetitive and inefficient explorations.Although differences in stage of development and level of maturity make us wary of any discussion that "Confuses" domestic and foreign museums,in dealing with the relationship with visitor studies,museums at home and abroad face a similar picture:on the one hand,museums have an urgent "Need" to attract new visitors and enhance social value and influence;on the other hand,it is the visitor research and evaluation which should play an important role in this process fail to play their due value.The reasons for this are complex and diverse,but there is growing evidence,from the visitor studies’ internal long-standing systemic problem,which is chaotic external category the internal structure,is the main reason which creates the contradictory present situation,and is the key to solving this problem,too.Although few literatures directly discuss the problem of“System construction" of visitor studies,researchers at home and abroad have reflected and discussed the nature and connotation of visitor research and evaluation in an "Unconscious" way and reached a basic consensus on some issues.For example,the relationship between "visitor research" and"visitor evaluation" is no longer an iterative relationship within the same field,but points to two parallel directions of different goals;It basically forms the basic structure with "front-end evaluation","formative evaluation","summative evaluation" as the core,and so on.These discussions undoubtedly have a profound impact on our understanding of visitor studies,but there are still a large number of issues that have not been properly addressed.For example,when we talk about "visitor research",what are the questions that we are really focusing on between the visitors and the museum?How do these questions relate to the museum’s practice of visitor evaluation?How can we combine the results of visitor research with the development,implementation,and testing of museum exhibitions or programs?In fact,these problems point to the lack of the ability of integrating the existing achievements and the practical needs of the museum at the system level.In other words,although there have been a lot of achievements in visitor research and evaluation both at home and abroad,museums rarely benefit from them.This contradiction means that we need to stand in a"Problem-oriented" perspective to re-examine the external category and internal structure of visitor research and visitor evaluation.This article takes the construction of museum visitor research and evaluation system as the main goal,so that to discuss how to construct the external category and internal structure of visitor studies under the logic of "Problem-oriented".And at the level of application,the impact of the system on visitor research and evaluation is discussed.In order to achieve this goal,this thesis comprehensively uses the literature analysis and the case study:The literature analysis is the system construction’s main method,through "Bottom-up" and "Top-down" two ways to the visitor research and evaluation of the literature encoding.At the same time,literature analysis is also the main way to test the impact of the system on theoretical research;The case study is used to examine the impact of the system on practice.Under the guidance of the system,the author has carried out a series of visitor evaluation practices in China,to illustrate the application value of the system in this process.Through the coding of the literature and the test of the practice,this thesis achieves the goal of visitor research and evaluation system construction by "Four-level structure" under Problem-oriented perspective.In the first-level structure of "Visitor Research System",there are four second-level structures;"Visitor Motivation Research","Visitor Behavior Research","Visitor Experience Research" and "Visitor Feedback Research".The second-level structure of each item contains different dimensions(third-level structure)involved in the corresponding literature at present.Each three-level structure further presents the specific research problems(four-level structure)in the corresponding literature at the present stage.In the first-level structure of "Visitor evaluation system",there are three second-level structures;"Visitor Front-end Evaluation","Visitor Formative Evaluation" and "Visitor Summative Evaluation".Each second-level structure includes three third-level structures,namely "Visitor Need Dimension","Visitor Cognition Dimension" and "Visit Effect Dimension".Each three-level structure further presents the specific evaluation objectives(four-level structure)involved in the corresponding literature at the present stage.In order to test the application value of Visitor Research and Evaluation System,this thesis starts from "The reconstruction of the history of domestic visitor research and evaluation"(theoretical impact)and "The impact of domestic visitor evaluation project"(practical impact),systematically expounds how the system constructed in this thesis integrates visitor research and evaluation from theory to practice.Finally,on the basis of Visitor Research and Evaluation System construction,this thesis probes into the disciplinary trend of this field and the value and influence of the System on the disciplinary process.This article holds that although we still lack the objective conditions of "visitor research+visitor evaluation=visitor studies" at this stage,with the continuous improvement and application of Visitor research and evaluation system.It will provide important support for the substantive development of this process.