Illuminating the Process of Learning in History Museums through the Perspective of Adult Visitors

History museum professionals make many assumptions about how visitors learn at their sites but, for various reasons, they rarely do research to test those assumptions. The primary purpose of this study was to explore how adults learn in history museums to fill that gap in understanding. This research utilized a conceptual framework that combined constructivism, free-choice learning, and the Change of Body State (COBS), and was guided by the research question, "What learning processes do adults engage in during visits to history museums?" A qualitative approach was utilized to better understand the process from the visitors' perspective. Data was collected from fifteen adults at six geographically dispersed and thematically varied Connecticut history museums where guided tours were the primary method for sharing information with visitors. The data collection protocol consisted of a pre-tour survey, observations of participants during a guided tour, and a post-tour unstructured interview about participants' learning behaviors during the tour. Data was transcribed and analyzed through the constant comparative process until findings emerged. The findings illustrate that all of the participants engaged in three active learning processes in response to encountering new information on tour: recalling memories or prior knowledge, meaning making, and puzzling when new information conflicted with their prior knowledge. Recalling emerged as the most critical learning process since neither meaning making nor puzzling could take place without the visitor recalling prior knowledge first. These findings will help museum professionals better understand how visitors learn at their sites and enable them to tailor experiences to support learning processes. The first two findings, recalling and meaning making, support existing research on cognition, constructivism, and free-choice learning, as well as expand our understanding of them. The third finding of puzzling, or cognitive conflict, does not align with the theories of constructivism and free-choice learning, indicating that these theories are insufficient for understanding how adults learn in museums. More research is needed to understand why each visitor responds to being puzzled differently, resulting in everything from meaning making to the rejection of new information. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]