Abstract
Question-asking is essential for reasoning, understanding, and investigating scientific problems within and beyond traditional classrooms. Nevertheless, questions generated in formal and informal learning environments can be infrequent and unsophisticated. This study explores museum visitors’ question-asking quality by considering their interactions with two different modes of a question-asking mobile app (Ask or Game Mode) in two different museum environments (linear non-interactive or non-linear interactive exhibits). Results showed that visitors’ question-asking quality was influenced by app modes and by museum environments. Specifically, we found that visitors’ question-asking quality was significantly higher when using the gamified version of the app (Game Mode) compared to a non-gamified version (Ask Mode) in a linear non-interactive exhibit. Findings also revealed that question-asking performance could be significantly influenced by instrumental factors (such as app performance in answering questions) and socio-contextual factors (such as visitor group inquiry frequency). The study provides fundamental and comprehensive insights for designing active learning environments by considering the influential factors of question-asking.
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The data that supports the findings of this study is available at Su, M. (2022).
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This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [Grant Number 1438825].
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Appendix A
Appendix A
How the Tier is Defined in Our App’s Response System.
Examples | App reaction | Tier (how certain the app responds to the Qs) |
|---|---|---|
Q: What is stardust? Our app: Stardust was designed to catch comet dust and pre-solar interstellar materials and return them safely to Earth | Our app directly answers the question | 1 (perfect match) |
Q: How many stars in the sky? Our app: If you were asking “How many stars in the galaxy?” The answer is: Current estimates suggest that there are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy | Our app reinterprets the question, with an answer provided | 2 (close match) |
Q: What makes a wave? Our app: Sorry, I don’t understand. Did you mean to ask: “What is a wave?” “What makes a tornado?” Neither of these | Our app raises two seemingly relevant questions with hyperlinks to their answers | 3 (partial match) |
Q: Did the dinosaurs die from a meteor? Our app: Oops! I haven’t learned that yet. But did you know: Volcanoes are built by the accumulation of their own eruptive products – lava, bombs (crusted over ash flows), and tephra (airborne ash and dust) | Our app replies that it has not yet learned that information and provides the user with a random science fact from its database | 4 (no match) |
Note that users could indicate that none of the alternative questions suggested by the app represent their originally posted questions by tapping “seems wrong” when viewing the answer screen, which allowed the research team to keep improving the Q&A database.
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Su, M., Ha, J., Cortés, L.E.P. et al. Understanding museum visitors’ question-asking through a mobile app. Education Tech Research Dev 71, 2483–2506 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-023-10265-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-023-10265-6