Lewalter et al. (2025) examine how school-based factors shape students’ self-regulated STEM learning during and after a museum visit. The study addresses an important challenge in STEM education: how to connect classroom learning with meaningful real-world contexts beyond school. Focusing on a museum exhibition about mobility and traffic, the authors investigate whether students’ learning strategy knowledge, prior knowledge, prior interest, and classroom preparation or follow-up activities predict their learning processes during the visit and their learning outcomes three months later.
The study used a pretest–posttest–follow-up design with 409 Grade 10 students from 21 classes in 12 German high schools. Students visited the Deutsches Museum München and explored a tablet-supported exhibition programme titled Mobility Transition—What Moves Us in the Future? Traffic and Mobility Challenges of the 21st Century. During the 90-minute visit, students worked in small groups and engaged in self-guided exploration of selected exhibits. Questionnaire data were collected one week before the visit, immediately after the visit, and approximately three months later to measure learning strategy knowledge, preparation and follow-up activities, situational interest, basic psychological needs, perceived content relevance, engagement, knowledge, and individual interest.
Results show that most students did not experience systematic classroom integration of the museum visit: 75% reported no classroom preparation, and 60.4% reported no follow-up activities after the visit. Students’ metacognitive and motivational learning strategy knowledge positively predicted several aspects of the learning process, including perceived content relevance, basic need satisfaction, situational interest, and engagement. However, when prior individual interest was included in the model, it became the strongest predictor of learning process variables, suggesting that students’ existing interest plays a central role in shaping museum-based STEM learning.
For medium-term learning outcomes, follow-up activities in the classroom were especially important. Three months after the museum visit, students who experienced classroom follow-up showed higher self-perceived and objective knowledge. Knowledge of learning strategies also contributed to self-perceived knowledge, whereas students’ later individual interest was mainly predicted by their prior individual interest. Overall, the findings highlight that museum visits should not be treated as isolated field trips. Instead, their educational value depends on stronger links between classroom teaching and out-of-school learning, particularly through helping students develop self-regulated learning strategies and providing meaningful follow-up activities after the visit.
Source (Open Access): Lewalter, D., Neubauer, K., & Moser, S. (2025). Self-regulated STEM learning in museums—the role of learner characteristics and visit-related activities in school. International Journal of STEM Education, 12(1), 56.
