Thesis--Auburn University, 2009. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-126).

It is widely acknowledged that without volunteer guides, or docents, most museums and galleries would find it impossible to offer education programmes as they are known today. Docents work in the critical interface between visitors and works of art, yet often they are viewed as being passive, and often ineffective, transmitters of the gallery's educational message. The literature on gallery education emphasizes docent "management", or the methods used to recruit, train, and supervise docents. But gallery staff must consider the docent’s beliefs, values, and viewpoints about art, and about education, for improvement of education programmes to occur. This study describes, and analyzes, the docent’s perspective of gallery education programmes, and the extent to which docents are actively engaged in the ongoing process of learning to help others learn. In order to obtain their perspective, six docents in two art galleries were engaged in long, semi-structured, and repeated interviews. These interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. Categories derived from the teacher's practical knowledge, such as subject, curriculum, instruction, self, and milieu, were used as a framework to describe and analyze the docent's practical knowledge. It was found that though the docents did indeed hold a coherent body of knowledge that originates in their practice, their theoretical knowledge of art was often an inadequate base on which to build an interpretation of the gallery's exhibitions. Differences were found in the educational goals of the gallery, and between the institution, and the docent’s educational values and purposes. Educators need to be aware or the shifting, complex, and sometimes paradoxical nature of the docent’s role. The docent’s perspective must be considered in the successful planning and implementation of education programmes. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

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Industrial heritage tourism has been in focus for many academic studies and tourism is an alternative developmental tool for mines and contributes to their economic success. This thesis is about the Falu Mine in Dalarna, Sweden, which has World Heritage status since 2001 and is one of the biggest attractions in the region. Its history and cultural importance are reasons for the importance of preserving the heritage. The Falu Mine is under the management of the Great Copper Mountain Trust and one of their ambitions is to ensure the continuous popularity among domestic and international visitors. In order to gain a better understanding of the visitors and to find strategies to improve performance, a visitor survey has been conducted in the summer of 2011. It is the authors believe that the guides of the Falu Mine have the best available insight and that their perceptions help to add to the understanding about the visitors. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore the perceptions of the guides about their visitors, to investigate how the perceptions correspond to the statistical results and to study if there are any differences between domestic and international visitors. The mixed methods approach will increase the depth and accuracy of the results, by linking qualitative with quantitative data. The results show that differences between domestic and international visitors exist, both proven by interviews with the guides and the visitor survey. These differences occur in the factors, such as level of education of the visitors, group size and number of children in the group, knowledge of the visitors prior to and after the visit, sources of information and the fulfillment of the visitor expectations. The perceptions emphasize how these differences impact the guided tours. The guides of the Falu Mine have to be aware of those differences in order to adjust the tour accordingly, as well as the management of the Falu Mine can use this knowledge in order to identify strategies for improving performance.

With the rapid development of the tourism industry in China, the need to train more and more competent tour guides has become more urgent than ever. These tour guides require a sophisticated level of spoken English, but, at present, their English-speaking proficiency is far from satisfactory. It is this problem that has inspired the writing of this paper. The paper attempts to search for appropriate teaching techniques that would be useful for improving the speaking skills of Chinese tour guide students. The paper is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1 will outline the problem being discussed. Chapter 2 then aims to suggest solutions to the problem stated in Chapter i After discussion of relevant issues, it is decided that Mim-Mem, Dialogue and Role-playing might be appropriate techniques for teaching the speaking skills to Chinese tour guide students. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 deal with the Mim-Mem Technique, the Dialogue Technique and the Roleplaying Technique respectively. After an examination of the three suggested techniques, Chapter 6 discusses material preparation and provides practical suggestions for classroom applications. The paper should be regarded as an initial base for further discussion and research.

During the last seven years or so, China has adopted an open-door policy, which has brought about an increase in diplomatic intercourse, and cultural and technical exchanges between China and other countries. And, above all, the number of tourists coming to visit China has been growing rapidly year by year. Together with this increase comes the demand for tour guides, especially Englishspeaking tour guides. Since most Chinese tour guides who are presently working in the travel service have not been able to receive professional training, they encounter difficulties of various kinds in their work. Such a situation demonstrates an urgent need for designing a special curriculum for training Chinese tour guides. Problems with the current situation are analysed in detail in Chapter 2. The analysis reveals that there are problems with the existing arrangement for recruiting tour guides and also tour guides' weakness in oral communication with tourists which is a result of inadequate training. In order to have an objective picture of Chinese tour guides' oral English � both strengths and weaknesses � a questionnaire was designed, and interviews were conducted as part of the field study. The whole of Chapter 3 is devoted to the analyses of the questionnaire and interviews, which includes the designing and distribution of the questionnaire and the data analysis. Chapter 4 focuses on the discussion of the importance of aims and objectives in the curriculum. It offers guidelines for the other elements of the curriculum which are stated in relation to students' future needs. Students are expected to achieve the goals set for them in the course through studying the course materials. Therefore, teaching materials have to be selected in order to be able to serve the basic aims and objectives of the course. Considerations need to be given to both language and content. Details of how to choose course content are dealt with in Chapter 5. The final chapter gives suggestions for teaching and evaluation. This field study report is not intended to present a proper curriculum. Instead, it is hoped to suggest some aspects worthy of consideration when the training in oral English for tour guides is being planned.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 124-139).

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-117).

The problem of this study was a test of a specific videotape designed to influence the actions of tour guides for older adult groups. The purposes of the study were to observe guide performances and older adult responses before and after training in techniques for sharing information with older adults in public spaces. The hypotheses were tested. 1) Guides after training would exhibit significant differences in behaviors of pointing, repeating, pausing, questioning, conversing, facing art when talking, talking inaudibly, pacing rapidly. 2) Older adult drop-outs would decrease on tours with especially trained guides.

Design and evaluation of real-time descriptive mediation (RTDM) for live aquarium exhibits was proposed to support the participation of visitors with and without vision loss. RTDM was developed to address learning, entertainment, restorative, and social motivations. Data was collected during a lab study with adults to get feedback about the RTDM and compare it to traditional docent presentations and audio tours. Findings show that the RTDM made it possible for participants to address their exhibit motivations and led to specific personal and social aspects of participation. A majority of participants with and without vision loss reported that the RTDM was supportive of their motivations and perceived it to be more effective at supporting learning, social, and restoration motivations compared to audio tour and docent mediation. The main contributions of this work are in: 1) developing evidence-based information design criteria for mediation at live animal exhibits; 2) demonstrating that mediation designed to support exhibit motivations can facilitate participation in adults with and without vision loss; and 3) validating participation as a design goal.