Collaborative Research: University Maker Spaces: Discovery, Optimization and Measurement of Impacts

合作研究：大学创客空间：影响的发现、优化和衡量

• 批准号: 1432107
• 负责人: Julie Linsey
• 金额: $ 42.78万
• 依托单位: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1432107&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; University; Maker; Spaces

Continued innovation is essential to national security and economic growth. It is crucial that engineering education move beyond teaching engineering science and analysis: engineers must design, create, and innovate. This collaborative project by Georgia Tech, Texas State University - San Marcos, and James Madison University will measure the impact of university maker spaces and identify approaches and guidelines for designing maker spaces. A maker space is a location where the individuals who have a passion for innovation can access resources needed to freely invent and build physical objects and prototypes. In response to the success of community maker spaces outside of academic settings, many universities are moving beyond traditional machine shops and building multi-disciplinary maker space design centers. This study seeks to understand and use these new environments to achieve long-elusive aims in engineering education such as improving student retention, fostering diverse learning environments, and promoting multi-disciplinary teams. Maker spaces also have the potential to positively influence females and minorities, who are driven to pursue engineering by opportunities for creative thinking and human impact. This work will also investigate the potential of maker spaces to positively influence females and minorities and there by broaden participation in engineering.The maker movement underway nationally has the potential to transform university engineering education. The movement is primarily originating outside of the university environment. This project will measure the impact that maker spaces have on engineering idea generation skills, design self-efficacy, retention and minority/female engagement. The project has two major research objectives. The first is to measure the impact of university maker spaces at Georgia Tech, James Madison University, and Texas State-San Marcos. Impact will be measured through engineering design self-efficacy; retention in the engineering major; and idea generation ability. Impacts will be measured at two levels. The first phase of the project will use a randomly assigned experimental design to assess the impact of early engagement on females and minorities through a longitudinal measurement. In the second level, maker space participants will be studied via a comparison between extensive users and those with minimal exposure. In this project, segment snapshots and longitudinal measurements will be combined. The second major research objective will be to identify approaches and guidelines for designing maker spaces. Once the effectiveness of a maker space is shown, the questions of how to replicate it in other places and how to improve existing university maker spaces will be addressed. In this phase a cross-university study of maker spaces will be undertaken. Key features will be determined and may include how these spaces are designed, the people attracted, and hours of operation. Through interviews, surveys and collection of publications, novel approaches and effective practices will be determined and disseminated.

持续创新对于国家安全和经济增长至关重要。至关重要的是，工程教育不应局限于教授工程科学和分析：工程师必须设计、创造和创新。 这个由佐治亚理工学院、德克萨斯州立大学圣马科斯分校和詹姆斯麦迪逊大学合作的项目将衡量大学创客空间的影响，并确定设计创客空间的方法和指南。创客空间是一个对创新充满热情的个人可以获取自由发明和构建物理对象和原型所需资源的地方。 为了应对学术环境之外的社区创客空间的成功，许多大学正在超越传统的机械车间，建立多学科的创客空间设计中心。这项研究旨在了解和利用这些新环境来实现工程教育中长期难以实现的目标，例如提高学生保留率、培育多样化的学习环境和促进多学科团队的发展。创客空间还有可能对女性和少数族裔产生积极影响，因为创造性思维和人类影响力的机会促使她们追求工程学。这项工作还将调查创客空间对女性和少数族裔产生积极影响的潜力，从而扩大对工程的参与。全国范围内正在进行的创客运动有可能改变大学工程教育。 该运动主要起源于大学环境之外。该项目将衡量创客空间对工程创意生成技能、设计自我效能、保留率和少数族裔/女性参与度的影响。该项目有两个主要研究目标。 第一个是衡量佐治亚理工学院、詹姆斯麦迪逊大学和德克萨斯州立大学圣马科斯分校的大学创客空间的影响。影响将通过工程设计自我效能来衡量；保留工程专业；和想法产生能力。 影响将在两个层面上进行衡量。 该项目的第一阶段将采用随机分配的实验设计，通过纵向测量来评估早期参与对女性和少数族裔的影响。 在第二级中，将通过广泛用户和曝光度最低的用户之间的比较来研究创客空间参与者。 在这个项目中，分段快照和纵向测量将被结合起来。 第二个主要研究目标是确定设计创客空间的方法和指南。一旦创客空间的有效性显现出来，如何在其他地方复制以及如何改进现有的大学创客空间的问题就将得到解决。 在此阶段，将对创客空间进行跨大学研究。关键特征将被确定，可能包括这些空间的设计方式、吸引的人群以及运营时间。通过访谈、调查和出版物收集，确定并传播新颖的方法和有效的做法。