| dc.description.abstract | Many fields, including heritage interpretation, are faced with a changing labor
force, a lack of public awareness, and reduced university enrollment. Combined, these
problems result in a smaller pool of qualified applicants to fill vacant positions.
Presenting media with a unified message to a targeted audience is one possible solution to
this problem. This research used formative evaluation to develop a recruitment media
toolkit that increases teenagers’ awareness of heritage interpretation as they explore
vocational possibilities. The preproduction phase of formative evaluation included review
of adolescent development, vocational development theories, and recruitment in other
professions. The product development phase included prototyping a recruitment toolkit
and evaluating the prototypes through four focus groups of high-school-aged teenagers in
three U.S. cities. Focus group transcriptions were coded inductively using classical
content analysis. Four themes emerged: (1) create a network of interconnected media, (2)
tell authentic stories with real people, (3) personal contact is important to teenagers, and
(4) offering a variety of media types will appeal to the largest array of teenagers.
Sentiments toward prototyped media showed that teenagers spoke most often and
positively about videos. Social media and career fair channels had the most attention, but
the attention was largely critical and contained suggestions for improvement. The
categories for accessibility/availability and information were coded most frequently when
discussing media. During the discussion, participants described interpreters as social,
communicative, and knowledgeable about cultural and natural history. Teenagers related
most positively toward being outside, communicating knowledge, and being interested in
cultural or natural history and interpretive media. These results show that future iterations
of a recruitment media toolkit should (1) increase and centralize an online and social
media presence to connect information and improve availability/accessibility; (2) retain a
variety of media types, but include more videos; and (3) highlight the action and variety
of jobs within interpretation. | en_US |
