Early Childhood Learning in Thematic, Process-Oriented Museums: Evidence from a Five-session Multisensory Summer Workshop

Over the past decades, museums have increasingly repositioned themselves as socially responsive learning environments, prompting renewed attention to early childhood audiences. While research has documented preschool children's embodied and multisensory engagement in museum settings, fewer studies have examined structured, theory-informed, multi-session programming within thematic technology museums. This qualitative case study investigates a five-session summer workshop series implemented at the Museum of the Olive and Greek Olive Oil (MEEL) in Sparta, Greece. Sixty preschool children (ages 3–6.5) participated across the sessions. Data was collected through 15 h of participatory observation, child-produced artifacts, and 60 written or drawn evaluation responses. Thematic analysis was conducted using socio-constructivist theory, object-based learning, and the Generic Learning Outcomes (GLOs) framework as interpretive lenses. Findings indicate that process-oriented exhibition design, combined with multisensory and creative activities, fostered embodied engagement and curiosity, collaborative meaning-making, emotional attachment, and interdisciplinary connections. The study contributes empirical evidence regarding the evaluation of preschool museum programming in thematic museums and highlights the pedagogical potential of process-oriented museums for integrative early childhood learning.