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Board 398: The Effects of COVID-19 on Students’ Tool Usage in Academic Makerspaces

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Tagged Topics

Diversity and NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

7

DOI

10.18260/1-2--43122

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/43122

Download Count

98

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Paper Authors

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Samuel Enrique Blair Texas A&M University

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Samuel Blair is a Graduate student in Mechanical Engineering program at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. His research interest include bio-inspired design of complex systems for human networks.

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Claire Crose

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Julie Linsey Georgia Institute of Technology

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Dr. Julie S. Linsey is a Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technological. Dr. Linsey received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas. Her research area is

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Astrid Layton Texas A&M University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-3790-2916

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Astrid Layton is an assistant professor at Texas A&M University in the Mechanical Engineering department and received her Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. She is interested in bio-inspired system design problems and is currently working at the intersection of ecology and engineering for the design of complex human networks and systems. She is also a member of the Institute for Engineering Education & Innovation at Texas A&M.

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Abstract

When college campuses resumed in-person learning opportunities following initial lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, many facets of campus life looked different. These differences continue to evolve semester to semester because of changing health guidelines, school decisions, and personal convictions. Academic makerspaces were not exempt from these changes and have experienced fluctuating usage and usage barriers over the past several semesters. Better understanding the effects of COVID-19 on academic makerspaces can help ensure that students continue to draw maximum benefits from these learning spaces and also provides potential advice for administrator and educators for future disturbances. Data collected via tool usage surveys administered to makerspace users at a large public university during the three semesters following the start of the pandemic (Fall 2020, Spring 2021, and Spring 2022) is used here to investigate. COVID-19 restrictions present during Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 were mostly loosened in Spring 2022. The makerspace is modeled as a bipartite network, with student and tool interactions determined via end-of-semester surveys. The network is analyzed using nestedness, a metric primarily used in ecology to evaluate the stability of an ecosystem and proposed here as a quantitative method to evaluate makerspace health. The surveys used to create the network models also provide validation, as students were asked to share tools used during the semester in question. The results suggest that nestedness is linearly proportional to usage, both increases and decreases. As such, tracking the nestedness of a makespace over time can serve as a warning that unintended restrictions are in place, intentional restrictions and/or policies may be too severe, or whether a space has effectively recovered from temporary restrictions.

Blair, S. E., & Crose, C., & Linsey, J., & Layton, A. (2023, June), Board 398: The Effects of COVID-19 on Students’ Tool Usage in Academic Makerspaces Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43122

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