Museums health and wellbeing Methodologies for measuring impact

Museums, health and wellbeing: Methodologies for measuring impact Helen Chatterjee Nuala Morse

Evaluation: What? • Research is academic enquiry based on standardized methods; advances generalizable knowledge and theory. • Evaluation is a process to find out whether the project has met its aims and how a set of activities is are linked to outcomes and impacts (both positive and negative) • For health and wellbeing project, this means looking at the emotional, psychological, physiological and social processes and other outcomes linked to the museum activities

Evaluation: Who for? • Audiences – to find out if what we are doing is working, to find out how we can adapt our approach if it’s not • Organisation – for advocacy, to inform strategy, to improve provision for audiences • Funders – to show effective our work is and what we have learnt from it • Health sector – for advocacy to prove what we are doing is working

Evaluation: Why do it? • Various reasons: – Did the activity/programme meets its objectives? – What were the practical challenges for delivery? – Was it (financial) efficient? – What were the unexpected outcomes? – What were the benefits for participants in terms of health, wellbeing or quality of life?

Methods of Evaluation + Research • Formative / Summative • Pre-post study design to measure health, and wellbeing outcomes; need a baseline to measure progress against.

Different approaches to evaluating for health and wellbeing projects • Qualitative • Quantitative • Considering using validated and standardised evaluation techniques to assess impact

Qualitative methods • Enable to capture people’s own perception of their health and wellbeing • More focus on process (rather than outcome) Methods: • Interviews • Focus Groups • Narrative / Life-history interview • Case studies • Observational methods

Quantitative methods Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale

Emotional (Subjective) Well-being: PANAS (Positive Affect Negative Affect Scale) Visual Analogue Scales

UCL Museum Wellbeing Measure https: //culturehealthresearch. wordpress. com/

Arts Observation Scale (Arts. Ob. S)

Co-producing evaluation • In collaboration with specialists/scholars and participants, evaluate the impact of your work for participants and, ideally, your partners. • Undertake a rigorous test and re-test approach to the development of new activities/programmes in association with specialists/scholars/participants

Museums benefits health and wellbeing by providing: Positive social experiences, leading to reduced social isolation Increased selfesteem and sense of identity Opportunities for learning and acquiring new skills Increased inspiration and opportunities for meaning making Calming experiences, leading to decreased anxiety Positive distraction from clinical environments Chatterjee and Noble (2013) Museums, Health and Well-being. Routledge. Increased positive emotions (e. g. optimism, hope and enjoyment Increased communication between families, carers and health professionals

Not So Grim Up North Investigating the health and wellbeing impacts of taking part in museum activities • ACE funded research project • UCL Researchers, Manchester Museums, TWAM • 2015 -2018

Project Aims • To better understand the impacts of museum activities on health and wellbeing outcomes for: • older adults living with dementia in hospital settings • stroke rehabilitation patients in hospital settings • stroke/ acquired brain injury survivors • adults with mental health issues

What did we do? • Pilot sessions • Co-developing aims • Co-developing methodology • Range of approaches www. healthandculture. org. uk/not-so-grim-up-north

Mixed-methods • UCL Museum Wellbeing Measure: pre and post session; beginning, middle and end. • SWEMWBS and life satisfaction questions, beginning and end, 3 and 6 months-follow up • End of project interviews and follow up interviews

Museum Engagement Observation Scale for PWD • Observational tool developed for systematized continuous video analysis • Looks at 6 dimensions of engagement within a museum object handling session: Morse and Chatterjee (2017) Museums, health and wellbeing research: co-developing a new observational method for people with dementia in hospital contexts. Perspectives in Public Health,

Engagement: P 5 f Negative engagement with objects Responds to prompts only Visual engagement with objects Explores objects (not engaged in conversation) Explores objects and engages in conversation Session 4 (5 minute intervals) Session 3 (5 minute intervals) Session 6 (5 minute intervals)

Further resources Creative and Credible how to evaluate arts in health projects - http: //creativeandcredible. co. uk/ Alliance website Website: https: //museumsandwellbeingalliance. wordpress. co m/ Coming soon: Creation of web-based ‘how to’ training resources including an online resource, Webinars and advice sheets Thank you • Helen: h. chatterjee@ucl. ac. uk • Nuala: nmm 15@Leicester. ac. uk