You know your institution matters to the people who walk through it. The challenge is evidence — the kind that holds up in a board conversation, a grant narrative, or a planning session. What does it look like when you ask your staff what they believe participants actually gain?
Museum professionals are confident about some visitor outcomes. Far less sure about others.
Museums as Progress asked professionals at institutions how consistently they believe participants experience 24 specific outcomes. The gap between highest and lowest confidence tells institutions where their assumptions are most exposed.
The 24 outcomes fall into four dimensions — color-coded throughout.
Across institutions, physical comfort scores high. Deeper outcomes split the room.
Staff rated each outcome from Rare (0) to Most Common (3).
About this data
Aggregate patterns reflect responses from professionals across institutions. Scores represent how commonly museum professionals believe participants achieve each outcome (0=Rare to 3=Most Common).
Individual institutions contributed varying numbers of responses; cross-institutional patterns represent professional perception trends among participating institutions, not sector-wide benchmarks. Unknown/unsure responses excluded from calculations — each outcome’s score reflects only respondents with direct observational basis.
Co-developed with John Falk. Assessment instrument measures 24 outcomes across four dimensions (Physical, Intellectual, Social, Personal) using the Falk visitor outcomes framework.
One institution’s data, up close.
Twenty-three staff at one museum rated the same 24 outcomes. Each dot below is one person’s answer. Some they agreed on. Others split the room. Where staff disagree is where the most productive conversations start.
Which of these dimensions would your team agree on, and which would split the room? If you hesitated, that’s what the assessment makes visible.
The conversations this makes possible
An alignment map gives your leadership team a shared view of where you are — and a starting point for deciding where to focus.
It’s interesting that an education-focused institution shows such uncertainty around whether we’re helping people discover new things about themselves.
What does it mean that we feel uncertain that people are achieving social outcomes?
What would happen if marketing, visitor experience, and education worked together for the next three months to focus entirely on communicating the value of our museum and providing experiences that help people ‘feel free from work and routine’?
Where else do people in our city go to ‘feel connected to something bigger than themselves’? How are we different from those alternatives? If we were to focus on that outcome, who might we partner with?
If our grant narratives are promising outcomes our own team isn’t confident we deliver — should we be closing that gap before the next ask?
Museum professionals in MaP’s Outcomes Lab are working through exactly these questions — using their own alignment data to change how their teams make decisions.
What is the Outcomes Lab?
The Outcomes Lab is a peer working group for museum professionals using their own alignment data to change how their teams make decisions. Members bring real institutional challenges — how to facilitate a productive conversation when your team disagrees on what participants gain, where to focus when every department has a different priority, how to use data to move a cross-functional group toward a shared direction — and work through them together with others navigating the same questions.
Participation is free and starts with completing the Outcomes Assessment with your team. The assessment provides shared data that makes peer exchange productive rather than abstract.
The Outcomes Assessment gave us a shared language for talking about what we’re actually trying to do for visitors. We’ve used the findings to build a ranking exercise across our teams — education, visitor services, exhibits, communications, IT — and found solid alignment between our priorities and the outcomes staff felt we deliver best. Those results are now shaping visitor surveys we’re designing this year and feeding into our 2027 strategic planning. It shifted our approach from ‘what should we measure?’ to ‘what are we willing to act on?’
Beth WatkinsManager of Exhibit Interpretation and Visitor Experience, Spurlock Museum of World Cultures
Where does your institution stand?
The MaP Outcomes Assessment benchmarks your team’s perceptions against cross-institutional patterns. No cost. About 15 minutes per person. The results surface alignment and misalignment you can act on — in board conversations, strategic planning, and program decisions.
Each institution’s data strengthens the picture for everyone.
Institutions seeking facilitated interpretation, board-ready synthesis, or strategic advisory work can explore those engagements after receiving results.
Why staff perceptions and not visitor surveys?
Because outcome data — from visitors, members, donors, anyone — is only as useful as your team’s agreement on what you’re trying to deliver. If your team disagrees on which outcomes matter, survey data becomes ammunition for whoever’s loudest — not a basis for decisions. The alignment map gives your team a shared starting point, so what comes next is grounded.
The 24 Participant Outcomes
These 24 outcomes — drawn from John Falk’s research across museums, zoos, aquariums, and cultural institutions — describe what participants actually gain from museum experiences, not what institutions intend to deliver. They’re the foundation of the MaP Outcomes Assessment, where museum staff rate how commonly they believe participants achieve each one. See what the data reveals
Physical
- Physical Safety Participants feel physically safe, welcome, and secure
- Beautiful Setting Participants feel immersed in an exciting or beautiful setting
- Relaxation Participants feel relaxed or calm
- Joy Participants experience moments of joy and happiness
- Sensory Stimulation Participants experience heightened or stimulated senses
- Freedom from Routine Participants feel free from work and routine
Intellectual
- Enjoyment Participants do or see things they like or enjoy
- Curiosity & Learning Participants satisfy their curiosity and/or learn about topics they find interesting, important, and/or timely
- New Perspectives Participants think about important issues and see things in new perspectives
- Intellectual Safety Participants feel intellectually safe and secure
- Confirmation Participants’ understanding of something is confirmed or affirmed
- Self-Discovery Participants discover new things about themselves
Personal
- Creative Inspiration Participants experience moments of creative inspiration and/or imagination
- Awe & Amazement Participants feel awe and amazement
- Novel Experiences Participants see or do things they do not usually get to see or do
- Something Special Participants experience something special, inspiring, or valuable
- Belonging Participants feel a sense of connection/belonging with members of their group or community
- New Actions Participants act in new ways/do new things