Museum Exhibitions as Educational Tools: a Case Study of Fort Jesus Museum, Mombasa, Kenya

Abstract

The understanding that many people visit the museum because they desire to encounter or learn something new and enrich their lives prompted this study. The study endeavoured to bring out the strategies that will help in improving the exhibitions at Fort Jesus museum so that they become more interactive and educative to encourage frequent use by all museum visitors. To be able to do this, the study concentrated on the following elements of the exhibitions: the layout; the text and labels; context, the general flow of the exhibition, role of tour guides, accompanying published information and the perception of the public on the current exhibitions. It is hoped that this will help the education department to fully realise the role of exhibitions as tools of education at Fort Jesus museums. The assumption was that there is a relationship between museum exhibitions and the education imparted to the museum visitors. Museum visitors are supposed to be educated through museum exhibitions. The study was carried out at Fort Jesus Museum in Mombasa, Kenya. The study targeted primary and secondary school children. A sample size of 100 was used and each individual child was considered a sampling unit. Data was collected through questionnaires; focus group discussions and key informants interview schedules. In the later case interview schedules were used to extract detailed information on the rational, objective and impact of the current exhibitions at Fort Jesus Museum.