Collaborative Research: Research Initiation: Social Engagement & Belonging in Academic Makerspaces

Academic makerspaces provide students with open access to resources that help them develop their problem solving skills, provide opportunities for collaboration, and encourage experimentation and discovery. However, recent research has shown that many makerspace environments do not readily support all students, create tensions between different student groups, and can sometimes lead to a work environment that feels exclusive and unwelcoming.

It is essential that our academic makerspaces are welcoming and that all students feel a sense of belonging and acceptance in these spaces. This project will use the flexible nature of an academic makerspace as the framework to provide students with the opportunity to connect socially in ways that have been shown to increase sense of belonging. This will be accomplished by integrating social engagement activities into a university affiliated makerspace.

The engagement activities will be designed to support students’ social and emotional development, which is an essential component to creating culturally competent, well-rounded engineers. Due to the flexible and informal nature of the makerspace environment, it is an ideal place to build and create social connections between students. Makerspaces provide a venue for informal learning and student connection that inspires attributes associated with the professional formation of engineers: creativity, discovery, lifelong learning, teamwork, and critical thinking.

This study will lay the foundation for future research that will inform strategies to create a makerspace culture with a focus on supporting all students.

This project aims to increase student sense of belonging in undergraduate engineering students through the integration of social engagement activities into an academic makerspace. The objectives of this project are to (1) strategically integrate social engagement activities that have been shown to contribute to increased sense of belonging and student persistence into an academic makerspace; (2) research the effects of the social engagement activities on student sense of belonging; and (3) increase engineering education research capacity at Western Washington University.

The outcomes of this work will lead to identification of best practices for improving student sense of belonging in a makerspace environment. This research will investigate the impact of carefully designed social engagement activities on development of student sense of belonging. Within the recent context of the COVID-19 pandemic, social support and positive sense of belonging have been shown to counter the adverse social emotional effects of the experience.

Engagement activities will focus on supporting student social and emotional development, providing peer support, and building awareness of the importance of having all students feel accepted in these spaces. The activities will be designed so that any student can participate regardless of ability level, time availability, or physical location. The research questions that will guide this work are (1) To what extent do students participate in the engagement activities within the makerspace and in which formats, and does this level of engagement vary based on student demographics? and (2) To what extent does participation in the engagement activities lead to an increased sense of belonging?

These research questions will be investigated through a communities of practice theoretical framework using a two-year mixed methods research that includes survey development, analysis, student reflections, and focus groups.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.