Exhibition Design And Visitor Learning: A Case Study On Learning In Informal Environment

In recent decades, although school also is representative of formal education system, as a comparison and supplement to it, there is more and more system researches about human'behavior and how to improve people's learning in the designed informal environments. In the exhibition learning which represented by museum learning already has built very mature research area and accumulated rich research outcomes. These researches formed the important component of the informal learning, and they are significant of fully knowing people'learning and promoting the establishment of lifelong learning system.The thesis focus on how can the exhibitions design in the museum lead to effective visitors'learning behavior. This study refers to the observation and research methods of learner-centered instructional design. Taking visitors as learners who learn the information and knowledge of the exhibitions, base on the response of the visitors to evaluate the learning outcomes of the exhibitions design.Observation and questionnaire are the main research methods of the thesis, Choosing Vancouver Pavilion of Shanghai EXPO as a study case. The research questions I am concerning in this paper is as following:Does the effect of exhibition design to the visitors' behaviors consistent with the designer's expectations? In this case study divides into the following three problems:1. What is the response (performance) of visitors at the exhibition?2. What is the exhibition design intention of designers?3. How much consistent of visitors' response (performance) in the exhibition with the expectations of the designer?There are altogether four parts in this paper: Part one introduces the background, significance of this research, raise the research questions, the research methods and the tools. Part two is a literature review on informal learning concept at home and abroad first, then reviews the empirical studies on informal learning and described the existing finding and achievements.Part three is a literature review on exhibition learning at home and abroad first, refining four basic characters of exhibition learning:interest and initiative, physical charm, and interaction and participation in and the promotion of learner's identity. Then introduces the exhibitions of Vancouver Pavilion. Then analysis the visitors' worksheet, visitors'interviews and the designer's interview which the data are from the research tools. After that, analysis the data according to the four characters of the exhibition learning.Try to find the differences between the visitors'response and the designer's prospect.Part four based on the conclusion of the thesis; give suggestions to the exhibition designing, rethinking and outlook the future of the study.