Designing a museum guide for visual arts education

Museums, which have become an effective learning institution following the developments in the field of education in recent years, provide a rich learning environment especially for directly attaining the goals of visual arts education. Although museums are considered to be quite important today, teaching materials on education programs facilitating students to benefit from museums more efficiently are far from sufficient. Due to this insufficiency, a museum guide for the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Anadolu University was designed in this study based on the projected achievements of Elementary School Visual Arts Lesson Curriculum. The guide was revised with the assistance of the opinions and feedbacks of experts in 5 different fields who were selected within the scope of maximum variation sampling and 7 form teachers were consulted about the completed museum guide. The study adopted design-based research while using semi-structured interview technique during data gathering process. Gathered data was analyzed with thematic analysis. Results of the research indicated that the activities in the museum guide designed for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade students are in line with the artistic achievements. Various views and suggestions were offered on the appropriateness of selected pieces and designed activities according to grade levels, of graphic design, of language and expression, and the applicability of the guide in the museum. It is concluded that the museum guide prepared through consulting experts in various fields is more appropriate for 3rd and 4th graders and that it is a useful education material helping teachers to teach in the museum.