Presentation from "The challenges of measuring informal science learning" at the 2013 Science Communication Conference organised by the British Science Association - slides by Jenny Mollica

1. Informal Science Learning
Jenny Mollica

2. Creative Learning
• Formed in 2008
• Arts centre and an academic
organisation
• Experimenting and developing
new models of access and
learning in the Arts

3. Core Strands
• Education
• Community
• Young people
• Public Programme
• Laboratory

4. Research & evaluation
• Own research & evaluation
team
• Two PHD researchers
• Cultural value
• Artists working in participatory
settings

5. Research project: Cultural
Mobility through Social
Intelligence
• Funded by Creativeworks
London
• Pilot Year - Barbican in
partnership with QMUL and
Chatterbox
• Measuring emotional and
aesthetic responses to our work

6. Research project: Artworks
London
• 3 year research project
• Funded by Paul Hamlyn Foundation,
exploring the role of the artist in
participatory settings
• Accreditation for artists who deliver
informal learning experiences

7. Why we evaluate
• Quality
• Research
• Monitoring &
reporting

8. Who are we evaluating for?
• Mixed funding models whereby one single project may have multiple
funding streams
• Example of some of our regular funders & their reporting focus:
• Arts Council England – artistic processes + increasingly economic
impact
• City Bridge Trust – social impact
• Corporate – transferrable skills for later life
• Can make it challenging for us to work towards a common set of
metrics

9. How do we evaluate?
• Evaluation frameworks
• Template evaluation toolkits
• Mainly proximal - limited
resources for developing distal
indicators of impact

10. The Rep’s Children
• Birmingham Rep’s Learning department in partnership with Warwick
University
• All babies born at two Birmingham hospitals during two weeks in Feb
2013
• Offered free cultural experiences at the Birmingham Rep for the first
10 years of their lives
• PHD researcher
• How do we measure the impact of people’s aesthetic experiences on
the footprints of their lives?

11. The Cultural Sector
• No over-arching body to pull together a common set of indicators
• The need for unilateral buy-in from whole host of funders on an
agreed set of indicators
• At present, the Arts are trying to fulfil a myriad of functions

12. Policy Making
• 2008 - Brian McMaster’s 2008 review: Supporting excellence in the
arts – frommeasurement to judgement
• 2013 – Maria Miller: the Arts must make economic case
• Cultural sector increasingly looking to use scientific methodologies to
measure impact and learning
• Arts subjects given reduced priority within the curriculum

13. Questions & Conclusions
• The Arts has to prove its worth and value in
society at the moment
• The need to continuously re-make the case
for the arts - data as a tool for advocacy
purposes
• Acquisition of data v analysis and use of
data in a meaningful way
• Sharing and dissemination of research
• Are scientific methodologies the way
forwards for survival in the Arts?