Educating Pupils in Museums: Possibilities for Forming Personal Learning Environments

Abstract

The concept of lifelong learning and the museum institutions behind its implementation open up numerous learning opportunities for learners. The research literature (Edson and Dean, 1996; Hilde and Hein, 2000; Falk and Dierking, 2000) emphasizes that learners learn at museums in a similar way they do in non-formal ‘schools’ where educational activities are in line with general programmes offered at a common school. Meanwhile, aiming to make the learning process attractive and joyful, the museums offer the possibilities of edutainment. Therefore, while exploring of museum visitors’ reactions to the surrounding environment of a museum, it is important to reveal what personal learning environments in the same museum are being identified by different visitors and what factors influence the formation of these personal environments. The aim of this article is to answer the following questions: what personal learning environments in the same museum are identified by various visitors; what factors determine the construction of such personal learning environments; can certain types of visitors as learners be identified?

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ss.78.4.3236