Most of the education researchers in Korea tend to study only the
materials issued by museums. Nowadays, museum education is being more
active in the group of audience, outside the museum. The experience study
groups outside the museum are becoming enthusiastic audience. Museum
educators need to focus on the educational activities taking place both
inside and outside of museum.
The objective of this study is checking the limit and problems of museum
educational materials through comparative study of museum educational
materials and suggesting improvement. The concepts and definitions of
museum educational resources are exhibition-based learning materials,
including online and offline. The subjects of museum educational materials
are 3-6 grades students in elementary school. The subjects of this
comparative study are explanation on website and work sheets of Goguryeo
room, National Museum of Korea and related educational material on the
market. The research questions are, respectively, First, what is the purpose
of museum educational resource? Second, what is the difference of teaching
method according to the type of museum educational resource? Third, what
is the effect of museum educational resource?
To verify these, main compositional principles of constructivism study
media are set. The three category of compositional principles are divided
into experience study, teamwork study, and evaluation method and
evaluation method are applied again. The three things of evaluation method
are based on accessibility, responsibility, and inspiration. The specific
question are suggested to see whether learners are authorized and learners
themselves bring questions and look for the answers, also, to see if process
of interaction and interpretation of material are stimulated. Finally, they
are suggested to see whether various perspectives are provided and recent
issues are dealt with.
The results are found below:
First, after finding out the objective of museum educational materials,
museum educational material is made for the purpose of pre-learning
material of audience's museum visitation, or for the role of guide, teacher,
or stimulator to help audience look around objects.
Second, after the difference of educational method according to the type of
museum educational material, the type of museum educational materials can
be divided into learner-directed and teacher-directed. Learner-directed
materials are focused on questions and the explanations are auxillary
process to answer the question. It doesn't provide everything to learners. It
only provides minimum information and guides how to find the answers by
themselves while looking for the information of objects.
Teacher-directed materials are focused on explanation. They contain
objects introduction card for parent when parent can use visit museum with
their children, supplements for school report, or explanation like website of
National Museum of Korea. These provide information for school report and
pre-learning, to look for information before visiting the museum.
Third, after finding out the effect of museum educational materials, the
utilization of museum educational materials are different according to the
characteristic of them. Materials based on explanation with few questions
are suitable for Korean students, who are used to have dependent learning.
This is the typical way of cramming education. In the view of utilization,
materials based on questions can increase leadership of learners through
comprehension, comparison, analysis, description, evaluation and etc. These
materials make learners more focus on objects in museum. Thus, it can be
concluded that the difference in educational effect is coming from the
difference of educational method.
Consequentially, to improve museum educational materials, it should
include process of information refinement to reflect inter-cultural
perspective and chance to think about integration for creative activities or
problems these days.
Suggestions from comparative study of museum educational materials are
below:
First, inside and outside museum, it needs to study not only work sheets
but also museum educational materials closely related to the exhibitions.
Second, research, development and evaluation standard of museum
educational materials oriented learners with various perspective are needed
instead of the class- or museum-oriented materials. Third, consent of
composition principles of museum educational material is needed.