PhD Scholarship on Multimodal Interaction and Museum Learning, Strathclyde, UK

Supporting Engagement and Learning with Novel Museum Technologies

The Mobiquitous Lab at the University of Strathclyde, UK invites applicants for a 3-year PhD position funded by a University scholarship.

Research theme / project description

Museums worldwide are experimenting with novel interface technologies to increase both entertainment and educational benefits for visitors. But while many installations support hands-on activity, this often just consists of frantic button-pushing. It seems much harder to support intellectual-emotional engagement with the content and meaningful learning.

This project will investigate how different multimodal interaction techniques support mindful engagement and learning in museums and how novel interaction modalities can enhance the traditional museum experience, for example by augmenting exhibit artefacts. Different sensory modalities provide different affordances for interaction and learning. The project will focus on what kinds of engagement different modalities support, and how these might be more powerful when combined (or on their own, e.g. using only tactile output). The student will study existing installations in museums as well as conduct focused experiments. Ideally, for the latter the student will develop small-scale installations that for example use different modalities to represent information. We aim to establish collaboration with local Scottish museums within this project.

Candidate profile

- an excellent (First or upper Second Class honours) degree in a relevant subject (Master preferred), such as interaction design, HCI, psychology, cognitive science, museum or heritage studies

- an interest in interdisciplinary work

- a good level of written and spoken English is essential

- the ability to work independently as well as in a team

- some experience of running user studies or observation is beneficial, but not crucial

- nationality of an EU country (we cannot cover fees for non-EU citizens)

Full details at http://mobiquitous.cis.strath.ac.uk/Main/DetailsHere