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The goal of our exploratory study was to examine how management and staff in engineering education making spaces are enacting equitable access amongst their users (e.g., students). We examined six different making space types categorized by Wilczynsky’s and Hoover’s classification of academic makerspaces, which considered scope, accessibility, users, footprint (size), and management and staffing. We reviewed research memos and transcripts of interviews of university makerspace staff, student staff, and leaders/administrators during two separate visits to these places that took place between 2017 and 2019. We inductively and deductively coded the data, and the findings suggested that equity of access was situational and contextual. From the results, we identified four additional considerations needed to ensure equitable access for engineering education making spaces: (a) spaces designed and operated for multiple points of student entry; (b) spaces operated to facilitate effective student making processes and pathways; (c) threats to expanded access: burdens and consequences; and (d) elevating student membership and equity through a culture of belonging. Together, the findings point toward a need for developing a more nuanced understanding of the concept of access that far supersedes a flattened definition of access to just space, equipment, and cost. 

The creation of student-centered spaces for making and prototyping continues to be a growing trend in higher education. These spaces are especially relevant in engineering education as they provide opportunities for engineering students to engage in authentic and collaborative problemsolving activities that can develop students’ 21st-century skills [1–3]. Principles of constructionist learning theory, which promote knowledge creation through development of a physical product [4,5], may be applied to support learning within these spaces. Beyond the construction of objects, this learning theory emphasizes a learning culture where teachers serve as guides to collaborative and student-driven learning [6]. This research seeks to understand how constructionism's learning principles are integrated into an engineering prototyping center (EPC) at a large western university. Further, we explore how these principles may support engineering student development within these spaces and identify a qualitative coding scheme for future research. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with faculty, staff, and students involved with the EPC suggests that the construction of physical prototypes within this space allows for the translation of abstract concepts to concrete experiences and the development of iterative design skills. Further, the data suggests that staff play an essential role in creating a learning culture aligned with constructionist learning principles. This culture supports staff in guiding student learning, fostering a collaborative environment, and promoting students’ lifelong learning skills. Data collected within this exploratory study suggest that constructionism's learning principles can play a central role in supporting the development of engineering students in an EPC. 

In the last decade, postsecondary institutions have seen a notable increase in makerspaces on their campuses and the integration of these spaces into engineering programs. Yet research into the efficacy of university-based makerspaces is sparse. We contribute to this nascent body of research in reporting on findings from a phenomenological study on the perceptions of faculty, staff, and students concerning six university-based makerspaces in the United States. We discuss the findings using a framework of heterogeneous engineering (integration of the social and technical aspects of engineering practice). Various physical, climate, and programmatic features of makerspaces were read as affordances for students’ development of engineering practices and their continued participation and persistence in engineering. We discuss the potential of makerspaces in helping students develop knowledge, skills, and proclivities that may support their attending to especially wicked societal problems, such as issues of sustainability. We offer implications for makerspace administrators, engineering program leaders, faculty, and staff, as well as those developing and delivering professional development for faculty and staff, to better incorporate makerspaces into the university engineering curriculum. 

The motivation for this exploratory qualitative study is to understand what a culture of belonging may look like across six engineering education making spaces in institutions of higher education in the U.S. The research question for this study was: In what ways are the management, instructors, and staff operating engineering education making spaces influencing a culture of belonging (if any) for engineering students? We examined the transcripts of semi-structured interviews of 49 faculty members and 29 members of management/staff of making spaces, using thematic coding. From the data, we identified four themes that described the culture of belonging being created in these six engineering making spaces: (a) a ‘closed loop’ culture for inclusion, diversity, equity, and access; (b) a ‘transactional, dichotomous’ culture; (c) a ‘band-aid, masquerading’ culture; (d) a potential ‘boundary-crossing’ culture. Our primary conclusion was that created cultures in engineering making spaces are extensions of normative cultures found in traditional engineering classrooms. Additionally, while making spaces were attempting to change this culture in their physical infrastructures, it was deemed that the space leadership needs to expand hiring strategies, the nature of making activities, the ambient/physical appearance of the space, disciplines, and required expertise, to create a truly inclusive and equitable culture of belonging. 

University-based makerspaces are receiving increasing attention as promising innovations that may contribute to the development of future engineers. Using a theory of social boundary spaces, we investigated whether the diverse experiences offered at university-based makerspaces may contribute to students’ learning and development of various “soft” or “21st century” skills that go beyond engineering-specific content knowledge. Through interviews with undergraduate student users at two university-based makerspaces in the United States we identified seven different types of boundary spaces (where multiple communities, and the individuals and activities affiliated with those communities, come together). We identified students engaging in the processes of identification, reflection, and coordination, which allowed them to make sense of, and navigate, the various boundary spaces they encountered in the makerspaces. These processes provided students with opportunities to engage with, and learn from, individuals and practices affiliated with various communities and disciplines. These opportunities can lead to students’ development of necessary skills to creatively and collaboratively address interdisciplinary socio-scientific problems. We suggest that universitybased makerspaces can offer important developmental experiences for a diverse body of students that may be challenging for a single university department, program, or course to offer. Based on these findings, we recommend university programs and faculty intentionally integrate makerspace activities into undergraduate curricula to support students’ development of skills, knowledge, and practices relevant for engineering as well as 21st century skills more broadly. 

Building upon our two years of research on the use of makerspaces in undergraduate engineering programs, we engaged in a large-scale data collection from students enrolled in undergraduate engineering preparation programs with affiliated makerspaces established for a minimum of three years. Using web searches, and other sources of information (e.g. references from other researchers or faculty members), we have identified 28 institutions that met our criteria. Working with a third party, we gathered over 574 responses from undergraduate engineering students with makerspace experiences spread across the 28 institutions. To gather our data, we created and validated an online survey with a combination of quantitative and qualitative items. We constructed a survey with subscales aligned with motivation to learn, growth mindset, learning goal orientation, knowledge of engineering as a profession, and belongingness and inclusion, as associated with work within makerspaces. We found significant positive correlations among the variables, positive levels of motivation, growth mindset, knowledge of engineering as a profession, and belongingness. We found differences in levels for gender, engineering majors, and student class standing. We discuss the implications for our findings in the context of undergraduate engineering student learning in makerspaces. 

Extensive funding and resources have been allocated to support the integration of makerspaces in undergraduate engineering programs and, with greater investment, there is growing likelihood that engineering students are expected to use the spaces as part of their coursework. The investment in and placement of the spaces within colleges of engineering, specifically, provide warrant for anticipating that engineering faculty members are assigning projects that require students to engage in the space to complete the assignments.