Self-efficacy and belonging: the impact of a university makerspace

Abstract

Background: In recent years, makerspaces have become increasingly common venues of STEM education and are rapidly being incorporated into undergraduate programs. These spaces give students and instructors access to advanced design technology and facilitate the incorporation of a wide variety of projects into the curriculum; however, their impacts on students are not yet fully understood. Using matched survey responses (i.e., repeated measures) from undergraduate students enrolled in engineering courses that assigned a makerspace-based project, we evaluate how the use of a university makerspace impacts students’ attitudes towards design, engineering, and technology. Further, we examine whether there are differences based on students’ year in program, gender, and race. Results: Paired t-tests were used to analyze whether and how nine factors changed within individual students over one semester. Analyses revealed that students who visited the facility showed significant gains in measures of innovation orientation, design self-efficacy, innovation self-efficacy, technology self-efficacy, belonging to the makerspace, and belonging to the engineering community. Subsequently, repeated measures analyses of variance (RMANOVAs) on the students who visited the makerspace revealed significant main effects of students’ year in program, gender, and race, as well as interactional effects of both year in program and race with time. Conclusions: These results affirm the value of incorporating makerspace-based projects into STEM curricula, especially during early coursework. However, our analyses revealed consistent gender gaps in measures of self-efficacy before and after using the makerspace. Similarly, gains in belonging to the makerspace were not equal across racial groups. We conclude that while makerspaces are fulfilling some of their promise for educating innovative problem solvers, more attention needs to be paid to avoid reproducing disparities in STEM education that are already experienced by female students and racial minorities.