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1. Making a New Path: Lessons Learned During the ‘Making the Data’ Phase of our Project.

   Kellam, N.; Cirell, A.; Coley, B.; Boklage, A. (January 2018, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Intl. Mtg.)

   In this NSF-funded Research in the Formation of Engineers (RFE) project, we are broadly interested in understanding how makerspace engagement influences the identity formation of engineering students, with a focus on students from underrepresented groups (URGs). Makerspaces are becoming very popular and have started to become much more common in K-12 schools, libraries, community centers, and universities. Makerspaces differ from traditional shops or labs in that Makersor those engaged in building or making in the spaceare typically given free rein to build products related to their interests in addition to pedagogical deliverables. It is implicitly assumed that makerspaces promote pathways to STEM majors, and, ultimately, STEM careers. In this project, we are therefore interested in developing an understanding of how engaging in university-affiliated makerspaces impacts the engineering identity development of students. We are currently midway in our data collection and analysis phases of the project, also known as the ‘making the data’ phase of our project [1]. In this paper, we will describe our preliminary work and focus the discussion on lessons learned. We will conclude the paper with brief descriptions of three journal articles in preparation or press, as we wrap up the ‘making the data’ phase of our project. 

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2. Black Men in the Making: Engaging in Maker Spaces Promotes Agency and Identity for Black Males in Engineering

   Greene, M.; Kellam, N.; Coley, B. (January 2019, 2019 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity)

   Thought must be given to how individuals from underrepresented groups (URGs) conceptualize their academic engineering identities. Black male students have been shown to face a great challenge in integrating their racial identification into their self-concept. This “balancing act” involves the navigation and negotiation between multiple social spaces. The establishment of a positive identity associated with engineering is critical to how underrepresented students establish their sense of agency and overall “fit” within the institutional and/or professional setting. Yet, because of low numbers in participant populations, many studies fail to disaggregate the experiences of individuals from URGs. Further, if makerspaces represent an avenue of hope for fostering a generation of makers and innovative thinkers prepared to address the needs and challenges of our society, it is quite plausible that without careful attention we could be building another exclusionary system through makerspaces, grounded in the acceptance of Caucasian, male experiences and perceptions as the status quo. As making could potentially impact academic progression, through early exposure and opportunities to develop confidence through building, design, iteration and community, it is critical that we understand how all students, especially those from underrepresented groups, come to affiliate with, become alienated from and/or negotiate the cultural norms within these maker communities. To achieve this, it is necessary to explore the complexities of underrepresented students’ identity development. This study investigated the experiences of Black male engineering students that have also engaged in university-affiliated makerspaces as makers. Seven Black male students from a range of institution types, including Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Institutions (AANAPI), participated in narrative interviews to ascertain stories of their personal growth and identity development. Engaging in makerspaces was found to promote agency and engineering identity for Black male undergraduates; however, makerspaces located at PWIs were found to reflect the heteronormative culture of engineering in a way that challenged smooth navigation in and through these spaces for Black men. 

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3. Using badging to promote makerspace participation and engineering identity development: Emergent themes and lessons learned from a pilot

   Bushra, Jannatul; Budinoff, Hannah; Shivers-McNair, Ann; Berger, Edward (January 2023, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition)

   Engineering identity development is crucial for engineers’ professional performance, personal fulfillment, and organization’s success. Various factors including recognition by others, interest, and competence can affect the development of engineering identity. Participation in engineering-related activities, such as involvement in makerspaces, can lead to increases in engineering self-efficacy and can provide opportunities for students’ to be recognized as engineers, potentially promoting the development of their engineering identity. However, participation in makerspaces is not necessarily equal across all student groups, with the potential for white, man-dominated cultures of engineering to be replicated in makerspaces, preventing students from marginalized groups from feeling welcome or participating. Earning microcredentials and digital badges in makerspaces has the potential to encourage participation and provide a means for recognition. The goal of this two-year project (funded by NSF’s PFE: Research Initiation in Engineering Formation program) is to study engineering students’ engineering identity development and how makerspaces and digital badges can contribute to this development process. Towards this goal, we interviewed a diverse cohort of eight first-year engineering students at a large, land-grant, Hispanic-Serving Institution in the U.S. during the Fall 2022 semester. Students participated in two one-hour interviews at the start and end of the semester on topics including their making skills, experiences in the makerspace, participation level in groups, perceived recognition as engineers, and feeling of belongingness in the engineering community and makerspaces. This paper presents lessons-learned from the interview implementation process, including dealing with disruptions from the ongoing pandemic and traumatic campus events. We also present emerging themes from qualitative analysis of the interviews. We expect the implications of this work to guide instructors and administrators in developing more motivating and interactive engineering courses and makerspace experiences for diverse students. 

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4. The WRI2TES Project: Writing Research Initiating Identity Transformation in Engineering Students

   Francis, R.; Paretti, M.; Riedner, R. (August 2022, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   The NSF Research Initiation in Engineering Formation (RIEF) project described in this paper is grounded in our understanding of the realities of professional practices. Engineers must be able to construct and participate in sound judgments that balance complex, competing objectives or constraints, and they must simultaneously produce recognizable engineering identities that enable them to articulate and justify those judgments to others through a variety of communication mechanisms, including writing. Consequently, the objective of our project isto investigate the ways students produce engineer identities in written artifacts through which they expect to be recognized as engineers. We divided the project into two phases: Phase 1 involving semi-structured interviews designed to conceptualize the engineering judgment process using thematic analysis; Phase 2 involving the design and dissemination of pedagogical approaches based on our results. This paper primarily reports the preliminary results of Phase 1. This project is an instrumental case study using semi-structured artifact-based interviews as the primary data source. Our semi-structured interviews are designed to focus on the ways students construct engineering judgments and produce engineer identities through their written projects. Course documents (including assignments and related material) as well as reflective field notes and analytic memos are used to provide additional contextual data. The data from this project provide a foundation for an understanding of engineering judgment that conceptualizes students as decision makers who participate in acts of engineering judgment. These judgments may be constructed individually, or constructed jointly through the interactions of multiple individuals working in teams to navigate ambiguity, uncertainty, and conflicting objectives. Moreover, our project situates engineering judgment as an interplay among several interdependent cognitive processes, and shows how the theories of identity as in interpretive lens, academic literacies, identity production, and naturalistic decision making can help to explain how undergraduate students come to view themselves as professionals capable of participating in acts of engineering judgment. 

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5. Fostering Maker Identity and Collaboration: Affordances of the Connected Spaces Dashboard in Two Afterschool Makerspaces

   Bawankule, A; Hopping, D; Tissenbaum, M; Weatherspoon, H; Ruffin, M (October 2023, ACM)

   With a focus on learning through personally relevant projects, students in makerspaces engage in meaningful design. Maker portfolios are increasingly being used to capture and assess progress and learning in these spaces. The Connected Spaces Dashboard focuses on maker identity development and collaboration between makers in and across makerspaces. We implemented a prototype version of the Dashboard in Spring 2023, in two after-school makerspaces. Analysis of two student interviews and Dashboard profiles highlighted the aspects of the tool that were effective (e.g., student affinities) and those that needed improvement (e.g., its ambient presence). We utilize these findings to inform the development of the next version of the Dashboard. 

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