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Abstract Many universities have formed makerspaces, and much anecdotal evidence suggests tremendous impact, but the empirical data remains lacking. This work attempts to fulfill this gap in understanding and details a longitudinal study focused on investigating the impact of student makerspace involvement. The correlations focused on, with regards to this impact, include idea generation ability, engineering design self-efficacy (EDSE). Data on these correlations were collected from participating freshmen and seniors to analyze how these factors/correlations change across the duration of an undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum. The impact of the freshman mechanical design course, which required some sections to use the makerspace, was also investigated. Influences of internship/co-op completion and makerspace involvement were also analyzed. Data analysis conveyed that seniors were more likely to be involved with makerspaces, reported higher scores of design self-efficacy, and had higher scoring idea generation metrics for effectiveness (quantity, novelty, and variety). Furthermore, seniors voluntarily involved in makerspaces had higher idea generation quality, while freshmen with prior makerspace related experience generated a larger quantity of ideas. This implies that greater exposure to makerspaces and purposeful involvement for the duration of an undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum likely lends to increased engineering design self-efficacy and higher quality idea generation ability.
Mahmud et al. (Tue,) studied this question.