Application Of Focus Groups In Museum Audience Evaluation

As a typical qualitative research method,focus groups have been widely used in foreign museum audience evaluation due to the wide-ranging nature and rich content of the collected data and the diversity of application projects of the research method.The application of this method in mainland China is currently common in market and sociological research,But the method has not received sufficient attention from the museum community.In view of the fact that focus groups are rarely used in domestic museum audience evaluation,and when and how the method should be used is not clear,this paper takes the application of focus groups in the field of museum audience evaluation as the research object,and discusses its scope of application and application forms.In the process of demonstration,firstly,the history and development of focus groups were reviewed,and their method characteristics and functions were summarized.Secondly,the feasibility and necessity of using focus groups to evaluate museum audiences were analyzed based on the study of foreign application cases.The following part focused on the steps and practicability of focus groups application in museum audience evaluation according to specific application practice.Finally,based on the current research,this paper further discusses the applicability of focus groups in different types of audience evaluations such as museum exhibitions and projects.Next,it summarizes the methodological characteristics of focus groups in different stages of audience evaluation,such as front-end evaluation exploratory research,formation evaluation process research,summative evaluation supplementary interpretive research.The following part focuses on evaluating the possibility of using focus groups independently to provide self-contained conclusions for museum audience assessments,and the complementary strengths of the use of focus groups in mixed research methods.The paper ends up with clear suggestions on the matters that require attention in the selection of samples and the implementation of interviews in the design process of the focus groups method,as well as the specific process of the core steps.