Audience
Profiles
Audience
Experiences
Biodiversity
Awareness
Conservation
Understanding
The cornerstone of ZooWise research is its benchmarking objectives and capabilities, made possible through expert-designed questions and survey methodology. Benchmarking provides points of comparison with other participating institutions in Key Benchmarking Areas to enable shared knowledge in pursuit of good practice.
Key Benchmark Areas
Benchmarking in this initiative gives participating institutions real-time insights about how audience experience and educational impacts change internally over time and in comparison to other institutions nationally and globally in key benchmarking areas.
These key benchmarking areas have been developed in part based on international guidelines published by zoo and aquarium associations and national regulations. Questions are organized by visit-related categories and the project’s key benchmarking areas.
Understanding your organization’s audience profile is important for targeting audience development initiatives as well as contextualizing survey responses. Automated analytics show whether there are systematic demographic patterns in terms of participation or outcomes.
Each zoo and aquarium should have a ‘thorough understanding’ of their visitor audience and needs of different target groups.
EAZA Education Standards
An essential concern for any zoo or aquarium is the quality the visitor experience. From the food and facilities to animal talks and interactions with staff or volunteers, monitoring the visitor experience in real-time allows zoo and aquarium to intervene as soon as a problem emerges.
“Exhibits, interpretive programs and other education programs should be evaluated on a regular basis for effectiveness and content. These programs should assess more than participant satisfaction, looking also at program impact (ideally including impact on conservation-related knowledge, attitudes/affect, and behavior).”
AZA Accreditation Standards & Related Policies, 2016
Increasing public understanding of biodiversity is a major content theme highlighted in zoo and aquarium policy and association guidelines. ZooWise enables participating zoos and aquariums to see their impact on biodiversity awareness and attitudes with real-time results benchmarked by institution type, national and global averages.
‘Zoos and aquariums are uniquely placed to inspire and educate people to understand the interdependence of all living things, and to make changes in people’s behaviour which will have a positive impact on wildlife’. They should ‘highlight biodiversity loss, through a range of activities and learning opportunities.'
BIAZA Education Policy (2014)
Zoo and aquarium policy emphasizes that visitors should both be aware of the threats to biodiversity and personal actions that can be taken to aid conservation. ZooWise enables robust evaluation of conservation-related interests, attitudes and knowledge. It also includes automated analysis of factors that may affect these important outcomes.
"Zoos and aquariums need to ‘ensure the visiting public are aware of the threats faced by species’ and ‘understand realisable actions which they can undertake in order to reduce these threats’."
WAZA Education Policy (2014)
Tools for Benchmarking
This project enables comparative impact evaluation at a regional, national and global level. This is accomplished using innovative research technology, standardized systems for comparative benchmarking and a focus on visitor experiences and education impacts.
Comparisons are based on standardized measurement tools to understand visitor profiles, experiences and outcomes relating to conservation education. This project uses benchmarking to aid in discovery and distribution of best practices.