Exploring the Pedagogical Foundations of Museum Exhibitions and their Websites

This paper reports in research conducted in two museums in Australia on the beliefs and pedagogies that influenced the design and development of educational materials on museum websites, both for materials that explicitly accompanied and explained an exhibition, as well as additional educational resources related to the topics presented. The paper describes key themes emerging from the research including the perceived usefulness of exhibition-related websites, how the website links explicitly to curricula, beliefs on how people learn from museums and the role of websites.