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Alison has a particular interest in the area of visitor studies: consultation and evaluation. She served on the committee of the Visitor Studies Group between 2001-2003. Examples of her work can be found in the members section of their website. For example, a chart showing the evaluator’s toolkit. Alison has also produced a range of single-sided A4 factsheets |
Current and recent work in this area includes evaluation of an audience development project at Birmingham Museums and Galleries; evaluation of the learning programme at Sutton Hoo for the National Trust; evaluation for a large London Museums Hub project ‘Say it Again, Say it Differently’ - conducting front-end, formative and summative evaluation at five museums as they improved interpretation for diverse audiences; evaluation of a family learning project for the Roald Dahl Museum & Story Centre and several audience consultation projects for the Ashmolean Museum(Download
report 
), Museum of London and Museum in Docklands working with visitors and non-visitors. Audience research was carried out at Melford Hall for the National Trust (Download
report ). Alison also carried out impact evaluation for the Curiosity &
Imagination project ‘Bringing Heritage to Life’ (Download
report ).
She conducted an evaluation
of the post of Museums Development Officer (Education & Access) for
West Midlands
Regional Museums Council. ( Download
evaluation report ) She has also evaluated a pilot training scheme for front of house staff at Leeds Museum & Art Gallery; diversity training for English Heritage staff and the long-term impact of an English Heritage/National Trust conference on delegates.
Formative and summative visitor consultation was undertaken at the Pitt
Rivers Museum using innovative techniques such as Personal Meaning
Mapping. This was part of a DCF funded redisplay project. ( Formative
evaluation report
Summative evaluation report )
When she was based in Norway Alison co-ordinated a two year project which
supported ten museums as they undertook evaluation projects. The report,
which provides guidelines and case studies, has been published by the
Norwegian Museums Authority.
She also undertook front-end, formative and summative evaluation for Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery regarding the development of Cultural Diversity resources.
She also delivers training in this area.