Brubaker, Eric, Vikas Maturi, Barbara Karanian, Sheri Sheppard, and David Beach. 2019. “Integrating Mind, Hand, and Heart: How Students Are Transformed by Hands-On Designing and Making.” In 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition  Proceedings, 32988. Tampa, Florida: ASEE Conferences. https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2–32988.

“Findings suggest that participation in this hands-on learning course is associated with large positive transformations in innovation self-efficacy, engineering task self-efficacy, and perceived connection between the self and maker community, and that these gains occur in all examined subgroups. On average, students report large increases in perceived connection between their “mind and hands” and “heart and hands,” with underrepresented minority (URM) women and non-URM men experiencing the largest increases in mind-hand-heart connection”

Andrews, Madison E., Maura Borrego, and Audrey Boklage. 2021. “Self-Efficacy and Belonging: The Impact of a University Makerspace.” International Journal of STEM Education 8 (1): 24. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-021-00285-0 Open access at: https://stemeducationjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40594-021-00285-0

“Results: Paired t-tests were used to analyze whether and how nine factors changed within individual students over one semester. Analyses revealed that students who visited the facility showed significant gains in measures of innovation orientation, design self-efficacy, innovation self-efficacy, technology self-efficacy, belonging to the makerspace, and belonging to the engineering community. Subsequently, repeated measures analyses of variance (RMANOVAs) on the students who visited the makerspace revealed significant main effects of students’ year in program, gender, and race, as well as interactional effects of both year in program and race with time.
Conclusions: These results affirm the value of incorporating makerspace-based projects into STEM curricula, especially during early coursework. However, our analyses revealed consistent gender gaps in measures of selfefficacy before and after using the makerspace. Similarly, gains in belonging to the makerspace were not equal across racial groups. We conclude that while makerspaces are fulfilling some of their promise for educating innovative problem solvers, more attention needs to be paid to avoid reproducing disparities in STEM education that are already experienced by female students and racial minorities.”

Wilczynski, Vincent, Aubrey Wigner, Micah Lande, and Shawn Jordan. n.d. “The Value of Higher Education Academic Makerspaces for Accreditation and Beyond,” 10.

“This study also offered two areas of caution germane to the discussion of makerspaces and accreditation. First is the risk of focusing overly narrowly on STEM when making is often practiced in a more holistic, interdisciplinary manner. Second, the study warned against the fetishizing of tools. Tools themselves do not enhance education, but rather the community of makers who uses tools in specific contexts does. In essence, the tools don’t make makers; makers make themselves”