Exploring Learning Possibilities in the Museum: Contrasting Cases

While learning is generally difficult to describe, this is especially true in the case of museum learning. Museums can be classified as “free-choice” learning environments where individuals have greater agency over with what and how deeply they engage. Given the diversity of visitor backgrounds and interests, this freedom lends itself to a wide set of learning possibilities. There have been several attempts to capture the evasiveness of free-choice learning, one of which is Falk and Dierking’s Contextual Model of Learning (CML) (Falk & Dierking, 2012. This model aims to synthesize the myriad of different factors that may contribute to visitor learning across three overlapping contexts—physical, sociocultural, and personal—to situate learning within the broader visitor experience. While the CML examines learning possibilities from the top down, affordances approach this discussion from a bottom-up perspective. The design principle of affordance explains how a given object is “usable,” and this helps dictate the physical interactions that can occur. Ultimately, neither of these theories alone is sufficient for fully encapsulating free-choice learning. To remedy this conceptual gap, I combine the CML and affordances in an attempt to more completely describe the experience of visitor learning in a free-choice setting. In the present study, I examine learning possibilities at two science museums in Philadelphia, which were specifically chosen as “contrasting cases.” I consider how real and perceived affordances either support or constrain learning practices across the three contexts of the CML. This analysis leads me to suggest an additional context to the model: the historical context. The proposed historical context aims to more explicitly unite the two theoretical approaches and explain the origins of free-choice learning possibilities.