PPD/R&D: Producing and Evaluating Random Access Audio Tours for Visually Impaired Visitors to Science - Technology Centers

纽约科学馆将进行研究，以确定随机访问音频技术的有效性，作为改善视障游客访问科学技术中心展览的一种手段。 该项目将使用形成性评估技术，创建随机访问图尔斯参观纽约科学馆的两个主要展览：声音感觉和看到光。 该项目将使用最近开发的技术，随机访问音频播放器，它提供了提高所有游客的学习效率的承诺，包括视障人士，在科学技术中心的互动展览。 这个项目建立在早期的工作，开发和评估音频图尔斯参观的动手科学博物馆。 为这个项目选择的展览涉及音频再现技术（声音感觉）和视觉感知的生理学和心理学（看到光）。 该项目的目标是将这些实质性的非正式科学体验的好处扩大到视障游客。 Seeing the Light最初由旧金山弗朗西斯科创建，是世界上复制最广泛的展览之一，使该项目的发现与许多博物馆直接相关。 项目小组将使用视力受损的参观者对照组和实验组，以评估这些图尔斯参观在增加展览对这些人的影响方面的有效性。 目前资助的项目的目标是确定音频图尔斯游览是否适用于任何人。 早期研究的初步结果令人鼓舞，表明音频图尔斯参观对科学博物馆的观众有益。 这项新的研究将在两个方面扩展先前的工作：（1）它将使博物馆工作人员能够开发和测试一个音频导览，该导览旨在支持视障观众的特殊要求。 (2)它将使项目团队能够确定 音频导览可以从通用设计的原则中受益-如何将视障观众的具体要求纳入为所有观众设计的音频导览。 这项研究的一般性发现和巡回演出的组成部分可以在以后被美国250多个科学技术中心使用。 该项目最后将向实地报告这一技术的生产、使用、成本和对目标受众的影响。

The New York Hall of Science will conduct research to determine the effectiveness of random-access audio technology as a means of improving access to science-technology center exhibitions for visually-impaired visitors. The project will use formative evaluation techniques to create random access tours of two major exhibitions at the New York Hall of Science: Sound Sensations and Seeing the Light. The project will use a recently developed technology, the random-access audio player, which offers the promise of improving the effectiveness of learning for all visitors, including the visually-impaired, at science-technology center interactive exhibits. This project builds upon earlier work to develop and evaluate audio tours for hands-on science museums. The exhibitions selected for this project address the technology of audio reproduction (Sound Sensations) and the physiology and psychology of visual perception (Seeing the Light). The project goal is to extend the benefits of these substantive informal science experiences to visually impaired visitors. Seeing the Light, originally created by the Exploratorium in San Francisco, is one of the most widely replicated exhibitions in the world, making the findings of the project directly relevant to many museums. The project team will use control and experimental groups of visually impaired visitors to evaluate the effectiveness of these tours in increasing the impact of the exhibits for these individuals. The goal of the currently funded project is to determine whether audio tours work for any. The initial findings from the earlier research were encouraging indicating that audio tours are beneficial for audiences in hands-on science museums. The new research will extend the prior work in two ways: (1) It will enable the museum staff to develop and test an audio tour which is designed to support the special requirements of visually-impaired audiences. (2) It will enable the project team to ascertain the degree to which an audio tour can benefit from the principles of universal design -- how the specific requirements of a visually impaired audience might be incorporated in the design of an audio tour for all audiences. Both general findings and tour components from this research could be used later by over 250 science-technology centers in the United States. The project will conclude with a report to the field on the production, use, cost, and impact of this technology on the target audience.