The Leibniz Centre of Excellence for Museum Education brings together the eight Research Museums of the Leibniz Association with four educational research institutes in the Leibniz Education Research Network and the Technical University of Munich (TUM). The Centre aims to advance visitor research and empirical educational research on museums as informal learning spaces.
Close collaboration between empirical teaching and learning research and museum education is essential to better understand visitor decisions and learning processes, as well as to be able to develop tailor-made opportunities for visitors. The Centre’s research focuses on the outcomes, impacts, as well as the prerequisites and conditions for successful educational activities in museums. Together, the eight museums and five educational research institutes tackle overarching questions and bring a transdisciplinary approach to visitor research.
The Leibniz Centre of Excellence for Museum Education aims to develop and establish collaborative research approaches and thus contribute to a higher standardisation and comparability of visitor research in Germany in the long term. The Centre also acts as a national contact point for museum research and specifically promotes exchange between various stakeholders.
Themes
- Visitor research
We want to better understand visitpreconditions and visitor behaviour. What access barriers do (non-)visitors bring to the museum and how can we remove them? What effects do personality traits, such as openness to experiences, have on visitor behaviour? What is remembered from a museum visit and why?
- Informal learning
What and how do people learn in museums? What conditions must be met for museum visitors to expand their knowledge and skills? How do discursive experiences (= participation, opinion-forming/argumentation and discussion) come about and what measures can specifically be employed to promote these?
- Perception and information processing
How do people perceive objects? Which information processing channels do they use when viewing? Under what conditions does information processing lead to (longer-term) retention?
The focus is not only on investigating interrelationships, but also on developing and evaluating appropriate measures to create sustainable visitor experiences.
Participating Institutions
Educational Research Institutes
- Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN)
- German Institute for Adult Education – Leibniz Centre for Lifelong Learning (DIE)
- Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM)
- Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi)
- Technical University of Munich (TUM)
Research Museums
- Deutsches Bergbau-Museum, Bochum – Leibniz Research Museum for Geo-resources (DBM)
- Deutsches Museum (DM)
- German Maritime Museum – Leibniz Institute for Maritime History (DSM)
- Germanic National Museum – Leibniz-Forschungsmuseum für Kulturgeschichte (GNM)
- Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science (MfN)
- Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum – Leibniz Research Institute for Archaeology (RGZM)
- Senckenberg Society for Nature Research (SGN)
- Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig – Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB)
Contact Information
- Alexandra Busch, (RGZM)
- Olaf Köller, (IPN)
- Lorenz Kampschulte, (DM)
