The course Museology of Natural Sciences is included in the Curriculum of the Department of Educational Sciences and Early Childhood Education of Patras’ University, Greece. During the winter semester of 2024 -2025, one hundred and fifty-eight (158) third and fourth-year students followed the course. They were given the option to fill in a digital questionnaire before and after the educational process in order to record on the one had their conceptual representations on museum education in general and specifically on museum education in Natural Science museums and on the other hand the possible impact of the course on them. Eighty-one of them responded to the completion of the pretest and twenty – seven to the completion of the posttest. The difference between the pre and posttest number becomes understandable given the non-mandatory attending nature of the courses in Greek public universities. The digital prequestionnaire included 9 open and close ended questions about the student’ s personal relationship with the museums and 7 open and closed ended questions about their conceptual representations on the educational role of the museum during Early Childhood Education. The digital post questionnaire included 7 open and close ended questions about the student’ s evaluation of the educational and museum experience that the course offered.

The study of the pretests revealed the students' conceptual representations of the museum and the museum education. Initially, the dominant representation of museums is that of the archaeological museum, which is compatible with previous research that concluded that, especially in Greece, museums are identified almost exclusively with archaeological ones. It is worth noting that the art galleries as a museum hold a very small percentage of student representations, as do the natural sciences museums, indicating an educational deficit in this direction.

A very crucial finding is the fact that although the participants in the research were final year students of a pedagogical department, they do not associate the museum with education. No one in the relevant question linked a museum with the education, only 7.4% visits museums out of interest related to their educational training and status. A point that cannot be unrelated to the fact that 55% of the respondents never used digital museum material during their school years and 42% never participated in a museum educational program. Furthermore, when asked about the benefits of visiting a museum, the majority focus on the cognitive aspect. Little reference is made to the experiential experience and how it creates an emotional connection with cultural heritage.

After attending the Museology of Natural Sciences course, 96.3% of the participants stated that their view of museum education changed. The majority emphasized the design of appropriate educational programs and the utilization of museum kits.

In conclusion, the research demonstrated the deficits in museum education during the school years which are perpetuated during higher education and consequently highlighted the necessity of further inclusion of museum education courses in teacher education departments.

Keywords: Museum education, conceptual representations, higher education curriculum.