Professor Huang Xiaoting is a professor in the Department of Culture and Tourism, School of Management, Shandong University. Her main research areas include basic theories of tourism, spatial and temporal behavior of tourists, spatial planning of tourism activities, and health and educational value of tourism. She is in charge of the National Natural Science Foundation of China’s Youth Program “Research on Tourism Time Planning Methods Based on the Laws of Spatio-Temporal Behavior of Tourists” and the General Program “Research on the Production and Construction of Tourism Activity Space Based on the Laws of Spatio-Temporal Behavior of Tourists”, and she has published many papers in SSCI journals such as Tourism Management, Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, Tourism Geographies, and CSSCI journals such as Tourism Tribune, Tourism Science, Human Geography, Resources Science, and China Population, Resources and Environment.
Professor Song Zhenchun is a professor in the Department of Culture and Tourism, School of Management, Shandong University. His main research areas include basic theories of tourism, tourism enterprise management, and tourism culture. He has presided over a number of provincial and ministerial level projects, such as the key project of Shandong Province Humanities and Social Sciences Planning and Research, Shandong Province Soft Science Research Planning Project, etc. He has published a number of papers in Tourism Tribune, Tourism Science, Journal of Shandong University, etc., and also published a number of academic monographs.
The research “Visitor’s spatial-temporal behaviour and their learning experience: A comparative study” by Professors Huang Xiaoting and Song Zhenchun from the School of Management, in collaboration with Researcher Yi Jin from Auckland University of Technology and Professor Chris Ryan from the University of Waikato, was published in Tourism Management Perspectives (Q1, IF 686), the top international journal of management and tourism. Professor Huang Xiaoting was the first author, Professor Song Zhenchun, Researcher Yi Jin and Professor Chris Ryan were the co-corresponding authors, PhD student Chen Meixin was the second author, and PhD student Wang Ying was the third author.
How Museum Visitors Learn in the Context of Cultural Tourism Integration
Museum tourism is an important form of cultural and tourism integration, and the educational function of cultural tourism is receiving more and more attention from the industry and academia. Museums enhance the visitor experience by exerting their cultural and educational value, delivering knowledge better than traditional classroom education methods, while also enabling visitors to access learning with a higher quality of experience. Previous research has tended to focus on the behavioral and experiential elements of museum visits rather than educational learning. There are two classic modes of museum visits, free visits and guided visits. The study was conducted as a field experiment in 2019 at the Shandong Museum (Egyptian exhibition), aiming to conduct a comparative study and conceptualization abstraction of the differences in learning styles between the two modes of museum visits and to explore the mechanisms and processes of experiential learning when tourists visit museum exhibitions. The study used field experimental research methods to compare the effects of the two types of visits on the spatio-temporal behavioral patterns of museum visitors to better understand their learning process; based on the theory of experiential learning, the eye-tracking data of visitors were collected and combined with questionnaires and personal meaning mapping, which enabled the researchers to understand to what extent the learning effect was determined by the spatial arrangement of the exhibitions as well as the way tourists visited the exhibitions, thus providing useful suggestions for museum layout and research tourism design.
Spatio-temporal Behavioral Differences and Learning Styles of Museum Visitors
In terms of spatio-temporal behavioral characteristics, there are significant differences between the spatio-temporal behavioral characteristics of museum visitors in the free-visiting group and the guided group, with the free-visiting group browsing a wider range of objects and allocating their time more flexibly, while the spatio-temporal behavior of the guided group is obviously guided and organized by the museum guide; according to the results of the eyeglasses-type eye-tracking device tracking data, the objects of the museum exhibitions and the art exhibitions tend to attract the attention of tourists more than the text introduction and pictures. Visitors in the free-visiting group were more inclined to view the objects and pictures to assist cognitive learning and emotional response, while visitors in the guided group paid more attention to the art exhibitions under the guide’s introduction. The results of the on-site experiment at the Shandong Museum validate the traditional perception that spatio-temporal behavior is determined by the joint influence of visitors’ personal interests and external environmental factors. Since the external environment in the museum is designed and supplied by the museum, visitors’ responses are manifested as corresponding changes in spatio-temporal behavior.
In terms of learning styles, experiential learning theory classifies learning styles as diverger, assimilator, logical reasoning, and accommodator. Both groups of visitors gained knowledge and improved their attitudes toward learning, with the guided group performing better in comparison. Visitors in the guided group gained more in reflective observation and abstract generalization, resulting in an assimilative learning style. Prior experiences, personal interests, and preferences positively influenced the learning process of visitors in both modes of visit. Visitors in the guided group expressed a higher level of identification with Ancient Egyptian culture; the museum guide not only guided the visitors’ learning process but also created more empathetic experiential outcomes for the visitors, which was the key to improving cognitive and even emotional learning and visitor satisfaction.
Applied Implications for Museum Practice
Personalizing interpretation services. Special personalized interpretation services can be provided for people with a high level of exhibition knowledge, while simple and active explanations can be provided for children. From the spatio-temporal perspective, ensuring group sizes of around five people can better personalize interpretation and encourage learning. Careful routing of guided tours allows for more efficient use of exhibition space, permits more visitors to enjoy the exhibition space without crowding, and potentially meets the needs of visitors to personalize their experience.
Technologizing Exhibition Design. The study confirms the potential of eye-tracking technology to enhance the application of museum exhibitions and research&education practices at a methodological level, where the text content of the exhibition needs to be supplemented by other means, including tour description and websites prior to the actual visit, on-site flyer, graphical computer simulations, and QR codes, in order to allow the visitor to pursue their interests. The opening introduction to the exhibition gives visitors a grasp of the big picture of the exhibition and rationally organizes the viewing sequence. Exhibitions with appropriate graphic proportions and clear descriptions are more likely to attract visitors’ attention and leave a deep impression on them. The basic concept of the exhibition is that the display resonates well with the learning experience of the visitors.
Links: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211973622000162#!
