Abstract:

Science museums offer rich contexts for informal learning, and have been gaining increased attention in public policies and science literacy. The effectiveness of such learning contexts is determined by the quality of the service experience perceived by their visitors. Several factors are determinant for the quality of science museums experiences, before, during, and after the visit, and this is reflected in the quality perceived by the visitors. The improvement of museum learning experiences can build on the advancements on service management research, notably on the field of knowledge concerning service quality and process improvement. This area of research has been attracting increased attention across diverse service settings (e.g., museums, education, leisure, etc.) allowing for the identification of opportunities for improvement and increased customers’ satisfaction.

The main objective of this paper is to explore the existing research work on visitors’ experiences and service quality, building on a comprehensive bibliometric analysis that also allows for learning about the scales used by scholars to assess the quality of service during the visit process. The study uses several criteria in subject areas, document types, and keywords and analyzes 966 published articles in Scopus database between 1979 and 2023. It identifies the main clusters and network visualizations of the keywords and the emerging research directions for the future work. In addition, the bibliometric mapping reveals a growing trend in academic interest in visitor’s experience.

Keywords:

Visitor experience, Service quality, Scale, VOSviewer.