EAGER: MAKER: Tracking Youth Interest and Engagement in Makerspace Learning Activities Using Wearable Technology

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The Maker movement is touted as being able to positively impact learning because Making will generate interest and engagement in STEM. Yet, there is a paucity of educational research that has actually examined if, when, how, and for whom Making is engaging or a space for interest development. Also, very little connection has been made to established psychological models of how interest develops from triggered moments of situational interest to sustained personal interests. Drawing on existing interest research, this work develops and tests new methods for capturing moments of high youth engagement during Maker learning activities and tracks their change over time with new wearable technologies. The use of wearable technologies is especially well suited for Maker activities where youth are often in constant motion and must complete immediate tasks that prevent them from being able to offer conscious reports of their engagement. At the heart of the work is the use of wearable sensor bracelets and still image cameras to measure psychophysiological indications of heightened engagement. The work is well positioned in the existing knowledge-based of human centered computing and appropriately references existing research. The work overs a creative intellectual step in experimenting with artifacts of human centered computing in the assessment of student engagement in making.