Creation and Validation of the Meaningful Experiences Measure for Museums

Abstract

A new tool for measuring meaningful experiences in museums was developed, consisting of 15 items that explore various themes integral to meaningful visitor experiences. The tool is unidimensional, which facilitates its practical use by museum researchers for trend analysis across visitors and over time. The measure demonstrated strong reliability and validity evidence for comprehensively evaluating visitor experiences across diverse museum contexts and visitor demographics. Encouragingly, demographic factors of race, gender, visitor frequency, membership status, and group composition did not influence meaningful experiences. Interestingly, overall meaningfulness scores did not vary by museum, but differences among items underscore the importance for individual museums to tailor their usage of the tool according to their unique settings and missions.