Affordances and Constraints of Online Museum Experiences for At-Home Science Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Online museum experiences, or OMEs, expand access to museums beyond physical buildings. With limited visitation during the COVID-19 pandemic, many museums increased OME offerings, including those marketed toward families. However, as most OMEs are developed for K-12 audiences, we have yet to understand how OMEs support-or fail to support-families' engagement with science. To investigate how OMEs facilitated or constrained families' engagement with at-home science learning, we conducted semi-structured interviews with parents and used quantitative discourse analysis to identify emergent affordances and constraints. These findings can inform the design of OMEs that effectively support families' at-home engagement with science. © ISLS.