Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 15:57:06 -0700
To: Scott Randol <srandol@berkeley.edu>
From: Alan Gould <agould@berkeley.edu>
Subject: Kepler planet transit exhibit tidbits

--The exhibit is very attractive to visitors: nearly 90% of the groups that came near the exhibit stopped to engage with it.
--Groups spent anywhere from 1 to 12 minutes at the exhibit, with an average dwell time of over three minutes (above average for hands-on exhibits).  Over 90% spent two minutes or more.
--A very wide range of ages were observed using the exhibit successfully about 15% of users were under 7.
--Most groups were engaged with the exhibit past simply turning the crank (100% of groups); they were switching the planet positions (53% of groups), watching the read-out screen (86% of groups) and reading the signs (48% of groups).  This suggests that visitors were not simply manipulating the exhibit, but were making meaning.  Upcoming interviews will provide data to confirm this.
--About 10% of groups attempted to reproduce the pattern from the orange panel.  About 48% lifted the "answer" panels associated with the blue panel, however, no group attempted to determine the planet arrangement that created the pattern shown (probably because of the orientation and position of the panel).

Let me know if you need more than this.  Once the interviews are complete, I will write up a formal report.

Scott


Scott Randol, Ph.D., Research Specialist
Center for Research, Evaluation, & Assessment
Lawrence Hall of Science
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-5200
510 643-1984
srandol@berkeley.edu