Understanding Feelings of Inclusion In Making and Engineering

Abstract

The maker movement is a growing social phenomenon that is being embraced in various fields, including education. There are many advantages to incorporating making into education, especially in engineering design, such as supporting real-life application of knowledge, multidisciplinary collaboration, problem-solving and teamwork. Elements that have not been looked at in the literature are the impacts of these making elements on students, more specifically on their feelings of inclusion in making and engineering environments. The extent of the impacts of making on project outcomes and teamwork in project-based learning engineering design courses are also contested. This thesis fills those research gaps by exploring students’ feelings and behaviours in a university makerspace and cornerstone engineering design courses. The general objectives are to study the effects of the makerspace as well as team dynamics and personality traits on student perception and behaviour in the Faculty of Engineering, specifically in cornerstone engineering design courses. This will be achieved by exploring factors that lead to feelings of inclusion in making and engineering, identify reasons students participate in these communities and exploring factors that influence team performance in a project-based engineering design course. Three studies are then conducted to meet these objectives. The first study found that in both the making and engineering contexts, connecting with the identity, participation and distinctiveness were identified as themes that provide reasons for feeling or not feeling included. Sustained involvement was identified as being an important factor in leading to increased feelings of inclusion. The second study found a difference between men and women, where the adjusted project grade for male students can be in part explained by some personality traits, but no traits were found to be significant for female students. The average team conscientiousness was also found to be a predictor of the team project grade. The last study found that the course has an equalizing effect on feelings of inclusion for students in engineering. Making seems to have the same effect as engineering for male students; however, not for females. Adjusted project grade was also found to be a significant predictor of the change in scores for all students’ feelings of inclusion in making and for the female students’ feelings of inclusion in engineering.