Comparison of comprehension of historical information in first- and third-person museum interpretation.

Abstract

Living history museums are realistic representations of the past where visitors encounter interpreters using artifacts and create a meaningful context for understanding history. However, little research has been done to determine how successful these museums are as a pedagogy for learning. This thesis compares comprehension at living history interpretive programs using first-person and third-person methods, evaluating the relative merits of the two approaches. A survey was administered to adult and school-aged visitors to two history museums, Old City Park in Dallas, which uses first-person interpretation and Log Cabin Village in Ft. Worth, which uses third-person interpretation. While the results of the survey show that both approaches have merits, and challenges, this thesis serves as a pilot study.