Collaborative Research: Research Initiation: Social Engagement & Belonging in Academic Makerspaces

学术创客空间为学生提供开放的资源，帮助他们发展解决问题的技能，提供合作机会，并鼓励实验和发现。然而，最近的研究表明，许多创客空间的环境并不容易支持不同的人群，在不同的学生群体之间造成紧张关系，有时会导致一种排外和不受欢迎的工作环境。至关重要的是，我们的学术创客空间是受欢迎的，所有学生都能在这些空间中感受到归属感和接受感。该项目将利用学术创客空间的灵活性作为框架，为学生提供以已被证明可以增加归属感的方式进行社会联系的机会。这将通过将社会参与活动整合到大学附属的创客空间来实现。参与活动将旨在支持学生的社会和情感发展，这是创造文化能力，全面的工程师的重要组成部分。由于创客空间环境的灵活性和非正式性，它是学生之间建立和创造社会联系的理想场所。创客空间提供了一个非正式学习和学生联系的场所，激发了与工程师专业形成相关的属性：创造力，发现，终身学习，团队合作和批判性思维。本研究将为未来的研究奠定基础，为创造公平和包容的创客空间文化提供策略，重点是更好地支持非主导学生。本项目旨在通过将社会参与活动融入学术创客空间，提高工科本科生的归属感。该项目的目标是：（1）将社会参与活动战略性地整合到学术创客空间中，这些活动已被证明有助于增加归属感和学生的持久性;（2）研究社会参与活动对学生归属感的影响;（3）提高西华盛顿大学的工程教育研究能力。这项工作的成果将导致确定最佳实践，以提高学生在创客空间环境中的归属感。本研究将探讨精心设计的社会参与活动对学生归属感发展的影响。在最近COVID-19疫情的背景下，社会支持和积极的归属感已被证明可以抵消体验的负面社会情绪影响。参与活动将侧重于支持学生的社交和情感发展，提供同伴支持，并建立对工程中公平，包容和多样性重要性的认识。这些活动将被设计成任何学生都可以参加，无论能力水平，时间可用性或物理位置。指导这项工作的研究问题是：（1）学生在多大程度上参与了创客空间内的参与活动，并以何种形式参与，这种参与程度是否因学生人口统计而异？（2）参与社区参与活动在多大程度上增加了社区归属感？这些研究问题将通过一个实践社区的理论框架进行调查，使用一个为期两年的混合方法研究，包括调查开发，分析，学生反思和焦点小组。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

Academic makerspaces provide students with open access to resources that help them develop their problem solving skills, provide opportunities for collaboration, and encourage experimentation and discovery. However, recent research has shown that many makerspace environments do not readily support diverse populations, create tensions between different student groups, and can sometimes lead to a work environment that feels exclusive and unwelcoming. It is essential that our academic makerspaces are welcoming and that all students feel a sense of belonging and acceptance in these spaces. This project will use the flexible nature of an academic makerspace as the framework to provide students with the opportunity to connect socially in ways that have been shown to increase sense of belonging. This will be accomplished by integrating social engagement activities into a university affiliated makerspace. The engagement activities will be designed to support students’ social and emotional development, which is an essential component to creating culturally competent, well-rounded engineers. Due to the flexible and informal nature of the makerspace environment, it is an ideal place to build and create social connections between students. Makerspaces provide a venue for informal learning and student connection that inspires attributes associated with the professional formation of engineers: creativity, discovery, lifelong learning, teamwork, and critical thinking. This study will lay the foundation for future research that will inform strategies to create an equitable and inclusive makerspace culture with a focus on better supporting non-dominate students.This project aims to increase student sense of belonging in undergraduate engineering students through the integration of social engagement activities into an academic makerspace. The objectives of this project are to (1) strategically integrate social engagement activities that have been shown to contribute to increased sense of belonging and student persistence into an academic makerspace; (2) research the effects of the social engagement activities on student sense of belonging; and (3) increase engineering education research capacity at Western Washington University. The outcomes of this work will lead to identification of best practices for improving student sense of belonging in a makerspace environment. This research will investigate the impact of carefully designed social engagement activities on development of student sense of belonging. Within the recent context of the COVID-19 pandemic, social support and positive sense of belonging have been shown to counter the adverse social emotional effects of the experience. Engagement activities will focus on supporting student social and emotional development, providing peer support, and building awareness of the importance of equity, inclusion, and diversity in engineering. The activities will be designed so that any student can participate regardless of ability level, time availability, or physical location. The research questions that will guide this work are (1) To what extent do students participate in the engagement activities within the makerspace and in which formats, and does this level of engagement vary based on student demographics? and (2) To what extent does participation in the engagement activities lead to an increased sense of belonging? These research questions will be investigated through a communities of practice theoretical framework using a two-year mixed methods research that includes survey development, analysis, student reflections, and focus groups.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.