Exploring preferred learning styles and perceptions of service quality in museum of local visitors: Ryfylke Museum case study

Abstract

Education has been considered an integrated part of the museum. This phenomenon draws attention to the authors about the question of whether there is a relationship between visitors’ preferred learning styles and their perceptions of service quality at the museum where they have been. The answer may bring the new knowledge to the field of psychology in terms of visitors’ behavior. Also, this provides museum operators to a more comprehensive look at their visitors regarding what the audiences need and what makes them satisfied. The research presents a case study, implemented to investigate visitors’ behavior in Ryfylke Museum. This thesis’s primary objective is to examine and test the correlations between visitors’ preferred learning styles and perception of service quality. The study, in which an online survey was employed as a measurement, was carried out in the scope of the Suldal Municipality. The main subjects to the paper are visitors who experienced at least one of the four museum’s activities, namely Folk music on Friday, Experience the farm life at Kolbeinstveit, Café, and souvenirs, The Ice Bear exhibition. SPSS program has been used as a data analytical instrument for the quantitative data collection. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and Exploratory factor analysis are considered appropriate measures for reliability and validity testing. Pearson correlation coefficient, as well as linear regression, were employed to analyze the hypotheses. The result from the basic upon “how the relationships between Suldal visitors’ preferred learning styles and perceptions of service quality in Ryfylke Museum are” and additional analysis about the correlation between their perceptions of service quality and visitor’s loyalty can contribute as implications and recommendations to the museum in more understanding the museum visitors, and be foundational research for further exploration about the local museum and its visitors.

Keywords: preferred learning styles, perception of service quality, loyalty, museum, local.