21세기에 접어들면서 문화에 대한 인식이 높아지고 문화 향유권이 주요한 정책이슈 로 등장하게 되고,이에 따라 박물관은 문화적 정체성을 대표하는 기관이자 문화 예 술 전수 및 향유의 중심지인 동시에,직접적인 체험과 참여를 통한 체험적,경험적, 비형식적 교육환경으로서 인식되고 있다(김난희,송재일,2006;최병식,2007).특히 박 물관에서 이루어지는 교육은 소장품과 전시작품을 중심으로 하여 단순히 감상의 차원 이나 큐레이터 중심의 지식전달식 또는 일방향적 상호작용 중심으로 이루어지던 이전 의 박물관 교육방법에서 벗어나,체험과 재미가 곁들여지고 상호작용적이며,전시물이 지닌 맥락성을 중심으로 방문객의 자율적인 참여를 강조하는 교육방식과 교육환경을 도입하기 위한 노력과 논의가 활발하게 이루어지고 있다(교육부,2000;양현미 외, 2003;윤혜순,2007;Dierking& Falk,2000;Evans,Mull& Poling,2002;Wetterlund & Sayre,2003).
This study aimed to compare learning effects in terms of deep understanding and maintenance of the related knowledge as a result of participation in a museum educational program held in the Oriental Medicine museum. For this purpose, two programs were compared : One is an experiential educational program which focused on 'hands-on' activities and has been implemented in the museum before this study; the other one is a PBL-based educational program which has been newly developed and implemented for this comparison study. Based upon the analysis of data from three ‘concept mapping' constructed by the participants and their reflective journals, the result of this study showed that description of more specific and detailed acquisition of knowledge were detected from the experiment group. This result means that a program designed by both hands-on and minds-on activities is more effective and desirable than other program in which emphasized was mostly hands-on activities. On the other hand, both groups showed equally effective maintenance of knowledge until a month later after the program. In conclusion, PBL-based educational program is valuable enough to be considered as a learning-teaching model which represents the future directions of the museum educational program designed with balanced combination of both minds-on and hands-on activities.