Makerspace participation: Which students visit, return, and why?

Abstract

Makerspaces are becoming increasingly common facilities in engineering departments and universities across the country. Facility stakeholders, including students, professors, and university administration, hold many assumptions about the benefits and importance of the spaces, but little research has been done to quantify student usage and to evaluate participation within these spaces. This is especially important to understand given the interdisciplinary and multipurpose nature of these facilities. In this paper, we seek to understand which undergraduate engineering students use the Makerspace and what factors influence their likelihood to return. In partnership with a Makerspace at a large, public institution in the Southwest, we analyzed nearly 29,500 sign-in entries from 4,230 unique participants. Log-in information from these students included an open-ended response to their reason for visiting the facility, which was coded into five categories. We provide descriptives by major of the students, who visited the Makerspace within a two-year period, as well as results of chi-square analyses to determine differences in use of the Makerspace and results of logistic regression to determine the probability of students' return. Analysis of this data begins to uncover the ways in which undergraduate students engage with Makerspaces and illuminates differences in behavior between majors. Further research should investigate the reasons behind these patterns and possible barriers to entry.