2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Investigating Student Experiences of Inclusion and Exclusion to Guide Makerspace Development - Work-in-Progress

This work-in-progress paper explores experiences of inclusion and exclusion among engineering students to provide actionable data for our campus and makerspace leadership. This initial version contains our collected data, initial results, and initial recommendations. Additional data will be collected in the 2024 – 2025 academic year and a more robust connection to existing literature will be added. Due to the timing of our new flagship makerspace opening, initial results were compiled to provide useful feedback to campus and makerspace leadership mid-way through the research process. These results and recommendations will be updated in further versions to include additional interview data and literature grounding.

A sense of belonging is vital to the success of engineering students during their academic journey. At our university, first year students’ design experiences will be tied in deeply with our new flagship makerspace and fabrication facility. By creating a welcoming and inclusive space that ties into students’ first year we hope to increase retention and recruitment rates, particularly for traditionally underserved students.

Conversely, the feeling of being excluded can lead students to leave STEM majors or drop out of university entirely. Mistakes in terms of makerspace culture can be costly in terms of diversity by pushing out students who otherwise are borderline in their perceptions of belonging in STEM programs and institutions.

To better understand how to create a welcoming makerspace, and avoid exclusionary practices, our research team collected and analyzed student experiences of inclusion and exclusion at our university. Our research team conducted 26 qualitative interviews to understand the institution-specific experiences of inclusion and exclusion felt by students. Each interview lasted between 30 and 75 minutes. The results were analyzed using applied thematic analysis. This study had a focus on the experiences of non-traditional, LGBTQ+, underserved minority, and women students as well as students with disabilities but was also open to majority categories as well.

We found the three main areas of exclusionary experience among our interviewed students: increased challenges across almost all metrics when students experience intersectional identities, the anxiety over failure and omni-present experience of imposter syndrome among STEM students, and a lack of representation and community for many underrepresented STEM minority students. However, we found that the primary reasons our students feel excluded at makerspaces are microaggression based on gender, race, or perceived skill level and a lack of basic customer service training among students and/or professional staff. As a result, we recommended all makerspace workers receive required training for avoiding microaggressions, race and gender allyship, and customer service and pedagogy.