Thursday
18 MarSurvey Results: parent preferences for virtual programming for young children
In this vein, last fall we approached Carol Tang, CEO of the Children’s Creativity Museum in San Francisco, to explore how we could work collaboratively to help identify parent/caregiver interests in the virtual learning space. We developed a survey on the topic, and with the additional assistance from the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM) distributed it through thirteen different children’s museums between November 2020 and January 2021. Over three months, we collected 1253 survey responses. Some of our key findings include the following:
- Parents’ and caregivers’ interest in virtual programming is tied to their child’s school situation. Those with children attending school online tend to be less interested in virtual programs.
- Over half of participants said they would be willing to pay for virtual programming.
- Parents and caregivers are most excited about programming that actively engages their children and programming on topics that go beyond school subjects – programs that fill the void left by the in-person museum experience.
We hope that these findings will inform children’s and other museums’ planning around virtual learning programs and activities. We invite your feedback and comments. What questions does this raise for your own museum or practice, and how can we extend and deepen this work?