Visitor Studies: Theory, Research, and Practice
Visitor Studies is the peer-reviewed research journal of the Visitor Studies Association, published digitally by Taylor & Francis. Issued twice each year, the journal advances scholarship at the intersection of visitor research, evaluation, learning sciences, and research methodology across museums and other informal learning environments, including zoos, parks, nature centers, historic sites, and visitor centers.
The journal serves as a forum for empirically grounded inquiry and theoretically informed reflection on how people experience, interpret, and learn in informal settings. It brings together researchers, evaluators, and practitioners to share research designs, methodological innovations, data analyses, and implications for practice. Articles frequently address questions of equity, access, interpretation, audience engagement, and institutional responsibility, reflecting the evolving concerns of the field.
By foregrounding methodological transparency and applied insight, Visitor Studies supports cumulative knowledge-building while remaining closely connected to professional practice. The journal seeks to foster international dialogue and comparative perspectives, contributing to a globally engaged and critically reflective visitor studies community.
The journal is a benefit of membership: become a member today to receive the journal in electronic format. See the Taylor & Francis website for the table of contents for the current journal.
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Meet the Editors!
Dr. Amber Simpson
Amber Simpson is an associate professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership at Binghamton University. Her research interests center on identifying mechanisms that increase STEM literacy, identity, and participation among individuals from socially excluded groups, including supporting those who choose to pursue and progress along STEM career pathways. This includes investigating family engagement in and interactions around STEM-related activities and examining spontaneous and humanistic approaches to mathematics through other fields such as archaeology and engineering. Through her research, Simpson often mentors undergraduate and graduate students as researchers, partnering with community organizations to support meaningful, equity-focused STEM learning experiences. Simpson also supports the professional development and growth of teachers, non-formal educators, and caregivers, and employs self-based methodologies to examine and refine her own practices as an educator and researcher.
Photo Credit: Jonathan Cohen, Binghamton University
Dr. Peter Wardrip
Peter Wardrip is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His current research and practice work focuses on designing and assessing maker-based learning experiences, educator professional development and educator learning communities. He co-leads WICK, a museum educator learning community in and around Wisconsin; Teacher Studio, a hybrid educator meet-up in Appleton, WI, Madison, WI, Detroit, MI and on Zoom; and Agency by Design Pittsburgh, a maker educator learning community in Western Pennsylvania. He is a research and evaluation partner with the Madison Children’s Museum and Discovery Center Museum. He is an adjunct researcher for the Scott Family Amazeum. His work has been published in venues, such as Visitor Studies, Curator, and Journal of Museum Education. When he is not working, he enjoys playing euchre with his family and friends, foraging for food in the countryside, drinking hot chocolate and playing soccer.
Dr. Adam Maltese
Dr. Adam Maltese is a Professor of Science Education at Indiana University Bloomington, where he was named the Martha Lea and Bill Armstrong Chair in Teacher Education in 2020. His research focuses on STEM education, particularly how individuals develop and sustain interest in STEM, how learners engage with failure and problem-solving, and the educational impact of maker programming. He uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to study student experiences from elementary through graduate education. Maltese has secured funding from the National Science Foundation, the Institute for Museum and Library Services as well as Google and other organizations. His work has generated substantial scholarly impact, with more than 7,000 citations to his 50+ papers, and Best Paper nominations and awards from the American Society for Engineering Education and the Visitor Studies journal. At IU he regularly teaches secondary science methods and graduate seminars in International STEM Education and AI in Education. He also directs the School of Education’s Make Innovate Learn Lab (The MILL).
The Visitor Studies Association archive holds the past publications of VSA, prior to the journal’s publication with Taylor & Francis. This archive contains the entire run of earlier formats of Visitor Studies: Theory, Research, and Practice (formerly the Proceedings of the 1988-1996 Visitor Studies Association Conference), Visitor Behavior (1986-1997), and Visitor Studies Today (1998-2006). The archive also contains conference abstracts from the annual Visitor Studies Association Conference (1998-2007), and C.G. Screven’s Visitor Studies Bibliography and Abstracts (4th Ed., 1999).
In addition to this archive, many full-length articles have been transferred to the Informal Science repository.