Engaging the families with young children in museum visits with a mixed-reality game: A case study

Abstract

Museums provide open-ended learning environments with fruitful learning resources for children. Most museums view children as members of the family groups because children usually visit museums together with their caregivers. Therefore, there is a need to facilitate the caregiver-child interactions and promote their participatory experiences for enhancing their re-visiting motivations. To this end, this study developed a mixed-reality game to promote social interactions and participation for family groups with young children. Preliminary research was conducted to understand the learning effectiveness of the mixed-reality game. Two family groups with preschool children were invited to experience the game. Qualitative interviews were applied to understand the learning performance of young children and the feedback of both caregivers and children. Besides, their learning behaviors were observed and conversations analyzed with a lag sequential analysis to investigate the differences in social interactions. The results showed that the mixed-reality game can enhance children’s learning in museums. Besides, questioning can facilitate more social interactions for children. The results can be used for future improvements to better engage the family groups with young children in museum visits.