Visitor Experience of Sustainability-Focused Museum Activities

Background and Research Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore how sustainability- and climate-related museum activities influence visitors' environmental behavioural intentions.

Museums are increasingly recognised as important places for public engagement with climate change. Through exhibitions, workshops, talks, and community or co-curated projects, museums can communicate environmental issues, encourage reflection, and create emotional and personal connections with sustainability. This study explores how visitors experience sustainability- and climate-related museum activities and whether these experiences are associated with intentions to adopt more environmentally friendly behaviours.

Specifically, this research examines:

· whether the activity makes climate change feel more personally relevant or psychologically close;

· how the activity influences visitors' emotional responses; and

· whether these experiences are associated with visitors' intentions to engage in pro-environmental behaviours.

The findings will contribute to research on museum learning, climate communication, and sustainability education, and may help museums better understand how different kinds of activities can encourage meaningful public engagement with environmental issues.

Voluntary Participation and Your Right to Withdraw

Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary. You may skip any question you do not wish to answer, and you may stop the questionnaire at any point without giving a reason and without any negative consequences.

Because the questionnaire is anonymous, once you have submitted your responses it will not be possible to identify and remove your individual data from the dataset. If you wish to withdraw, please do so before clicking "Submit."

Confidentiality and Data Protection

This questionnaire is anonymous: no names, email addresses, or other directly identifying information will be collected.

Your responses will be stored securely on UCL-approved, password-protected systems and will only be accessible to the researcher and their dissertation supervisor. Data will be retained in accordance with UCL's data retention policy and used only for the purposes of this MA dissertation and any related academic outputs (e.g., publications, conference presentations), in which only anonymised, aggregated results will be reported.

This research has been reviewed and approved by the UCL Research Ethics Committee.

Contact Information

Researcher: Huiqing Zhang, MA Museums and Galleries in Education, University College London

Email: dtnvh90@ucl.ac.uk

Dissertation Supervisor: Ms Caroline Marcus, University College London

Email: c.marcus@ucl.ac.uk