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Evaluation

and Research

The Science Museum of Minnesota’s Research, Evaluation and Audience Discovery (READ) Department works to better understand and amplify the voices of current and potential audiences for informal learning institutions. We approach our work so that the identities, values, and experiences of everyone involved in our studies are brought to the forefront through the use of both traditional and innovative qualitative and quantitative methods. 

We conduct studies at the museum and provide evaluation and research services for your educational and informal learning needs! We have experience with a variety of informal learning sites and research partners around the country.  We are excited to support your needs in exhibits, education programming, youth programming, community engagement, professional development, and family learning. 

Get in touch to get started on your next project by emailing Evelyn Ronning at [email protected]. 

Areas of Work

Program or Project Evaluation

Are you wondering if  your program is achieving its desired outcomes? Are you looking for external evaluation and funder reporting support for a grant project? Our team has years of experience with front-end, formative, and summative evaluation of in- and out-of-school educational programs, youth development and youth programming, community engagement efforts, professional development, exhibits, and more. We partner with you from question development to final reporting, choosing the methods that fit your needs, from embedded assessments to surveys and focus groups.

Browse a selection of recent projects below:

  • MUSE: evaluation for an IMLS funded professional development program to support the growth and development of staff who work in small, Midwest museums
  • Build a Mars Habitat: evaluation to understand how a tabletop museum exhibit generated learning, interest, and engagement around space science
  • Infestation: evaluation for an NSF-funded research project exploring how a theatrical gaming technique impacted museum visitor understanding of complex topic
Museum evaluators, Alexa Swan and Evelyn Christian Ronning, look at data while at US Bank Stadium for a museum-led Vikings Voyage field trip.

Audience and Educational Research

Are you wondering about the needs of your intended audiences? Hoping to expand your participation in your offerings? We help program managers in education, visitor services, and marketing understand what audiences want and need, from your geographic reach to the gaps between institutional expectations and visitor experiences. A few recent projects include:

Are your questions outside of a traditional museum or informal learning space? We’re proud of a successful track record of grant writing with federal, state, and private funders to conduct educational research in a range of settings. Through mixed-methods social science research, we have expertise exploring how adults and children learn together, engage with STEM topics, and make sense of the world around them.

Museum evaluator, Elena Tsakakis, is interviewed on stage during a conference covering podcasts.

Evaluation Capacity Building

Do you collect data such as program surveys or attendance, but want to better utilize the data to inform your decisions or adapt your offerings? Do you want to build the expertise and confidence of your staff to gather, analyze, and utilize data in their work? Our team can support your staff to understand and apply evaluation best practices in data methods, collection, and analysis, adapt your systems to more effectively use your existing data, and support confidence in data-informed decision-making for future efforts. Example below: 

Graphic used for describing aspects of visitor belonging in science/natural history museums.
Three museum evaluation experts stand in front of a slideshow screen that says "Centering Teachers' Voices for Effective Educational Programming" at a conference.

“It’s been an absolute pleasure working with SMM on this project. We are very grateful for this partnership and your expertise. [The Evaluation team has] been absolutely wonderful throughout this process. I hope we will be able to work with you again in the future. I would highly recommend [Science Museum of Minnesota's] services to anyone.”

Bethany ThomasVP of Education and Engagement at the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites

Recent Publications

Grack Nelson, A., Tsakakis, E., & Christian Ronning, E. (2026). Children’s podcasts as facilitators of vehicle-based family joint media engagement. Frontiers in Communication, 11, 1725515. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2026.1725515 

Christian Ronning, E., Lukowski, S., Grack Nelson, A., and Bequette, M. (2023). Moments that matter: Towards a visitor-centered understanding of belonging in museum spaces. Exhibition, (Fall 2023) vol. 42, no. 2.

Becker-Klein, R., Davis, C., Phillips, T. B., Del Bianco, V., Grack Nelson, A., & Ronning, E. C. (2023). Using shared embedded assessment tools to understand participant skills: Processes and lessons learned. Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, 8(1), 20. https://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.487

Jones-Rizzi, J., Bequette, M., Christian Ronning, E…and Brown, A. (2021). Organizing for equity-oriented change in museums: Insights, practical suggestions, and stories from the Science Museum of Minnesota. Available at: Informalscience.org. 

Hamilton, P. & Christian Ronning, E. (2020). Why museums? Museums as conveners on climate change. Journal of Museum Education, 45(1), 16-27.

MacManimon, S., Causey, L., Christian Ronning, E., King, Z., and Bequette, M.B. (2020). On the need for expanded guidelines in navigating ethical learning research at a science museum. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 57(5), 651-671. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21613

Brains On

In 2024-25, the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Department of Evaluation and Research in Learning led the Brains On the Move research project to understand how a children’s science podcast can prompt joint media engagement and family learning conversations in a vehicle environment. The project was completed in collaboration with Brains On!, a science podcast for curious kids and adults that explores various scientific topics through engaging stories, interviews with experts, and listener-submitted questions.

Explore the results of the study, geared towards three different audiences: podcasters, parents, and researchers. We also led a webinar that provided an overview of the methodology along with all the exciting things we learned about how families engage with STEM podcasts. 

vibrant illustration of families driving in cars together.

Podcast design can spark engagement. 

Find out what we learned about Brains On!’s design that enhanced family interactions and learning conversations.

CONTENT CREATOR GUIDE
back of kid at school with headphones on.

Podcasts can help parents facilitate conversations.

Watch our webinar and read our tip sheet to learn how parents can support children’s podcast engagement in a vehicle environment.

PARENT WEBINARPARENT TIP SHEET
person writing in a notebook

Our research methods

Review our study instruments and check out our guide for carrying out video-based research in a vehicle environment.

GUIDE FOR VIDEO-BASED DATASTUDY INSTRUMENTSCASE STUDIES ON THE MOVE
National Science Foundation logo.

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1907014 titled Brains On! the Move: STEM Podcasts as Facilitators of Automobile-Based Family Learning Experiences. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Belonging Project

Our evaluators led the Museums and Inclusion study to understand how visitors define belonging at science and natural history museums. These resources share key insights and guidance on how to start on your own journey of reflecting on belonging in museums.

If you work at a museum and want to reflect on belonging at your own institution:

BELONGING REFLECTION GUIDE

Check out our article in Exhibition on belonging in science and natural history museums!

If you want to learn about a visitor-centered model of belonging from our past presentations.

PAST PRESENTATIONS

If you are a researcher or evaluator and want to explore our photovoice method and interview protocol:

OUR INSTRUMENTS

If you want more literature on belonging in museums and to see where we drew some of our knowledge and inspiration:

LITERATURE REVIEW
National Science Foundation logo.

This material is based upon collaborative work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant #2005773, Museums and Inclusion. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Museums Advancing Racial Justice

Museums serve as vital community gathering places for conversation and exploration. As part of the Smithsonian Institution’s “Our Shared Future: Reckoning with our Racial Past” initiative, they partnered with the Science Museum of Minnesota to host Museums Advancing Racial Justice — a three-day convening in April 2024. The event brought together museum professionals from across the country committed to advancing racial justice.

Presented by:

This work was a partnership between the Smithsonian Institution and the Science Museum of Minnesota through the “Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past” Initiative made possible by funding from the Bank of America.

Many museums and cultural organizations exist as intentional acts of racial justice, telling the stories of people and communities that have been resisting racial inequities throughout history. These institutions and the people who lead them, regardless of their size, notoriety or access to financial resources are essential caretakers, preventing important pieces of our racialized history across the United States from being forgotten. Museum professionals have also led many movements and coalitions in recent history who have pushed racial justice work forward within and beyond our museum institutions.

At this convening, we came together as a community of museum and cultural organization practitioners to learn from each other and take collective action to keep advancing racial justice work through our organizations.

Resources

Workshop Recordings

The project was implemented with heavy contributions from groups of expert advisors nationwide: one group advising on the application process, another advising on content development. Additionally, this project had a dedicated group of evaluation professionals.

Titles are accurate to April 2024.

Project Leads

  • Deborah Mack – Director, Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past – Smithsonian Institution
  • Joanne Jones-Rizzi – Vice President, Science, Equity, and Education Division – Science Museum of Minnesota
  • Travis Helms – Project Director, Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past – Smithsonian Institution
  • Robby Callahan Schreiber – Director, Museum Access and Equity – Science Museum of Minnesota
  • Kendra Eull – Executive Assistant, Science, Equity, and Education Division – Science Museum of Minnesota
  • David Valentine – Program Manager, Museum Access of Equity – Science Museum of Minnesota
  • Liz Hughes – Project Manager, Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past – Smithsonian Institution

Advisors

  • Elisabeth Callihan – Application Advisor – Mississippi Museum of Art
  • Jennifer Himmelreich – Application Advisor – Institute of Museum and Library Services
  • Robert Luckett – Application Advisor – Margaret Walker Center, Jackson State University
  • Ahmad Ward – Application Advisor – Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park
  • Aletheia Wittman – Content Advisor – Museum Consultant
  • Leslie Walker – Content Advisor – Smithsonian Institution
  • nikhil trivedi – Content Advisor – Art Institute of Chicago
  • Brenda Tindal – Content Advisor – Harvard Museums of Science and Culture

Contributors - Evaluation

  • Pei Koay – Assistant Director, Research & Evaluation, Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past – Smithsonian Institution
  • Evelyn Ronning – Research and Evaluation Associate – Science Museum of Minnesota
  • Marjorie Bequette – Director of Research and Evaluation – Science Museum of Minnesota

Meet the Team

Headshot of Evelyn Christian Ronning.
Manager of Evaluation and Research in Learning

Evelyn Christian Ronning, Ph.D.

Evelyn’s research has primarily focused on the sociocultural contexts for learning in both informal educational settings like museums, family/community spaces, outdoor learning experiences, and formal educational settings like K-12 classrooms and professional development trainings for adults. Her work at the museum also includes evaluation projects big and small, on subjects as varied as: a culturally relevant and justice-focused youth development and workforce readiness program, inclusive exhibit and program design that centers Indigenous and African-descendant narratives in New England maritime history, and research on the effectiveness of organizational change work around equity in museums.

Headshot of Elena Tsakakis.
Evaluation and Research Associate

Elena Tsakakis

Elena Tsakakis (she/her) has been at the museum since 2021. Her work focuses on understanding how K-12 students experience informal science education programs through educator surveys, listening sessions, and observations, and creating systems to help measure program impact. She has a range of social science research experience in both academic and private sectors where her work has focused on understanding how people relate to the world around them, whether that be in a museum, outdoor space, school, or within their community. Elena has an M.S. in Natural Resources Management from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. in Biology from the University of South Dakota.
Headshot of Alexa Swan.
Evaluation and Research Associate

Alexa Swan

Alexa Swan (she/her) has a background as a practitioner in formal and informal education spaces and brings that lens to her research and evaluation role. She has experience at a variety of informal learning spaces including zoos, public gardens, and historic sites, and has been at the museum since 2023. Her evaluation work has focused on K-12 education programs, adult professional development and organizational change, and conservation engagement and empathy for wildlife efforts. Alexa loves talking about data and prioritizes bringing community and user voices into the evaluation process and supporting teams to understand their data and practice data-driven decision making. She has a B.S. and M.Ed. in elementary education, both from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.