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Work In Progress: Assessing the Long-Term Impact of Maker Programs on Career Outcomes and Industry Skills Development

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) Technical Session 14

Tagged Division

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM)

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/48341

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Paper Authors

biography

Glenn Walters University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-8305-4976

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Education
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Ph.D. Environmental Sciences and Engineering
2005
University of Vermont
B.S. Civil Engineering, Magna Cum Laude
1988
Champlain College
A.S. Business Management, Summa Cum Laude
1982
Prof

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Gordon Maples University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-5368-8767

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Paul Mihas University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Matthew Wettergreen Rice University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-9966-1540

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Matthew Wettergreen is Director of the Global Medical Innovation Master of Bioengineering program and the NSF Funded I-ACED Scholar Program at Rice University. He is also an Associate Teaching Professor at the award-winning Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK) at Rice University, recruited as the first full-time faculty hire in 2013. He has co-created materials and delivered workshops to establish international engineering design programs on five continents. Wettergreen is the co-author of the textbook Introduction to Engineering Design. For his contributions to the development of the design curriculum at Rice he received the Teaching Award for Excellence in Inquiry-Based Learning.

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Abstract

Our project, led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Rice University, seeks to assess the long-term impacts of Maker-focused educational programs on career outcomes and industry skills development. While much attention has been given to the positive educational outcomes of these educational programs, little has been written about their effects on career prospects and industry hiring trends. The project aims to identify relevant metrics for measuring career impacts, classify academic makerspaces, and develop tools for assessing the relationship between makerspace experiences and career readiness. We anticipate that the data generated will be valuable for educational policy, philanthropic support, and employer decisions, guiding strategic investments in design and fabrication studios to enhance workforce skills development. This study has two parts, the first employs mixed methods, combining qualitative interviews with over 30 students and 15 employers to identify metrics reflecting Makerspace impacts on careers. We aim to create a universal framework for assessing the link between makerspace experiences and career readiness across diverse institutions and studios. In the second part, we are developing a systematic taxonomy to categorize academic makerspaces and anticipate that the research will iteratively utilize informed insights between Activities 1 and 2 to refine the metrics framework for accessible stakeholder use. We anticipate to be able to share the work in progress results of our coding efforts from the interviews we will have completed.

Walters, G., & Maples, G., & Mihas, P., & Wettergreen, M. (2024, June), Work In Progress: Assessing the Long-Term Impact of Maker Programs on Career Outcomes and Industry Skills Development Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48341

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