Development of Virtual Museum Model for Youth

Abstract

—The research provided guidance of the key elements on design and development of virtual museum which is a critical learning resource supporting learning experience outside the classroom for youth. The objective of this research is to develop a prototype of virtual museums for youth and evaluate the efficiency of the prototype. The research comprised three steps: 1) studying demands and expectations of virtual museums for youth by examining documents and researches about virtual museums, visiting 10 museums in Bangkok and 20 virtual museums in Thailand and worldwide, and conducting a questionnaire survey on 400 university students about their expectations of virtual museums; 2) developing a virtual museum website prototype and trialing it with three experts and 10 university students for improvement recommendation; and 3) having five experts evaluate the quality and efficiency of the improved prototype. The study showed that virtual museums for youth should consist of five key elements: 1) efficiency of website’s function, 2) the website itself, 3) type of media used in the virtual museum, 4) type of tools used in the virtual museum, and 5) evaluation of the virtual museum. The virtual museum prototype received a highest level score from the experts (mean = 4.56) and a high level score from the university students (mean = 4.43). Moreover, evaluation results from the other five experts showed that all elements of the improved prototype were appropriate. © 2022 by the authors.